Brave New Generation

I remember where I was when President Kennedy was assassinated. I remember his idealism, and then our eager long haired years when we said “Don’t trust anyone over 30.” We, and those coming after us, intended to keep our idealism for good citizenship as we all aged… striving, seeking and never yielding. The world was going to be “new and improved.”

Mark Manson, successful blogger, is 36. This morning, (Monday June 1) I received my usual Monday morning e-mail from him. (footnote) At the risk of thereby misquoting or misrepresenting him, please let me present one great paragraph out of what he sent. I have broken it up into smaller paragraphs, for cosmetic reasons, all the better fit computer screens. His swear words are idealistically chosen for effect. 

QUOTE

I am thirty-six years old. Despite crippling problems with health care, education, gun violence, immigration, climate change, stagnant wages, income inequality, and racial inequality persisting for my entire adult life, I have never once seen my government help with or resolve any of these issues. 

For as long as I can remember, it has been: tax cuts, war, tax cuts, bailouts, tax cuts, bailouts. 

I have never seen things get better in this country. Only worse. I have never seen anything substantive from my leaders, Democrat or Republican, that makes me proud of voting for them. I wasn’t alive for the moon landing. I am too young to remember the Berlin Wall falling. I don’t give a flying fuck about Saddam Hussein. 

My introduction to my nation was 9/11, followed by hearing about friends and classmates being killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, followed by graduating into the worst economic collapse in 86 years, followed by thirteen more years of absolutely fucking nothing changing. 

Forty-five years of no real wage growth for the middle and lower classes? Nothing. Kindergarteners being shot at school with assault rifles? Nothing. Eleven million bankruptcies due to a corrupt and dysfunctional health care system? Nothing. Black people being repeatedly murdered by police, live, on camera? An entire generation of young people saddled with over a trillion dollars of debt just to go to school and then told to stay home and not work as soon as they get out? 

UNQUOTE

As Manson credibly related the ongoing frustration of his peers to the current protests and riots... something occurred to me: At age 36, Manson has never known a world without Reaganomics. 

It is instructive to compare the 40 years between the war and President Reagan’s changes, with the 40 years until today. In this comparison, reagonomics loses out.

While Mark and his friends take it for granted that a federal government should be mainly concerned with stockholders, and a business solely concerned with stockholders, that was not the case when I was young. In my day, every successful businessman knew there were other valid concerns beyond stockholders.

Some wise guy: “Ya, but the money will trickle down!”

Me: “Really? How’s that working out for you?”

For you Canadians, I suppose this doesn’t apply, except, after the international border reopens, if, say, a U.S. citizen is sincerely asking you why all the other developed nations believe in socialized medicine, and why they nearly all, including Canada, declined to participate in the invasion of Iraq, and then declined to join the occupation “to instil democracy”… 

After you heave a sigh and say, “It’s not coincidence,” you could suggest your American friends might just possibly, maybe, perhaps, debrief on how reaganomics has worked out. I tell you, the previous economic model was good enough for my grandfather, my father and I.

And for my final angry word (And Lord, how I want to swear!) 

In war time? A tax cut in war time? Only under something as ugly as reagonomics, back when America was supposedly needing all available money and troops for the war—desperate for troops— “all of us in this together,” when all of us were supporting some of us to fight overseas, could there ever be a tax cut… which the servicemen and their families would never see.

Sean Crawford

Calgary

June 2

2020

Footnotes:

For Mark Manson’s June 1st letter: 

View in browser

Promoting Mark’s regular Monday letter:

(Note: If you like these emails and know someone who would enjoy them, please consider forwarding this to them. If you are receiving this for the first time, you can sign up here to receive this newsletter every Monday.)

Atheism on Mars, Imperialism in Canada

essaysbysean.blogspot.com 

Hello Reader,

Got love of creatures?

(Got distaste for imperialism?)

Love of Creatures

War of the Worlds Poem

...Pause for Blog Identification

Bonus material

Epilogue

Love of Creatures

There’s a church hymn, a “Doxology.” You may have read it or heard it. I have the words in my annotated copy of The Secret Garden.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow,

Praise Him all creatures here below

Praise him above ye Heavenly Host 

Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost

Amen

Here is a link to some singers; they repeat the lines.

The Secret Garden is set in Yorkshire, the same region where years later a famous veterinarian, who also wrote It Shouldn’t Happen to a Vet, cribbed from another hymn for his book title, All Creatures Great and Small. Link to pictures as kids off camera are singing.

I must confess that after reading the doxology, my own poem seems dull. 

I composed in the shadow of the London Museum of Natural History, featuring respectful exhibits for Darwin and the balance of nature. The British even put Darwin’s ship on their five pound note: I think that’s because the British are, as a Columbian engineer told me, so empirical. They also had a coin (which I never saw) of Darwin facing an ape: I think that’s because they are “just saying no” to having Yankee imperialism from powerful Christians in the city of Washington and the state of Tennessee. 

Yes Virginia, the Yanks imperialize. 

Luckily, the United Kingdom is a “have nation,” as the U.S. federal government, in the name of "the people," denies aide funding to any nation where "the people" allow abortion. 

The republic of Ireland, 

(a catholic nation with an openly homosexual before-he-was-elected prime minister) 

last I heard, was about to “just say no” to the U.S. on that one, rather than have their innocent lonely girls going over to the U.K. for their (legal-in-the-UK) medical procedure) 

In my favorite “have nation,” Canada, according to the most recent Conservative party prime minister, abortion is legal and remains legal, with no opposing bills to be raised by the Conservatives in parliament, because the Canadian people do not want that can of worms opened. He did not, of course, apologize to our U.S. neighbours for our differing views on everyday life.

As for life far, far away from Earth, you may recall the sinister Martians of H.G. Wells were evolving into creatures with simplified digestive tracts (they only took in fluids) and great round heads.

War of the Worlds Poem

God’s Creatures

Camouflage meets eye

Stout armor meets teeth

Toxin dances with anti-toxin

Day mice dare the sky birds

Nocturnal mice meet the owl

A feather floats on currents of air

Centipede legs are fleet

Millipede legs will ram

Creatures circle and gyre

Island dodos grow larger

Across time dodos grow

Across space Martians grow

Heads grow as limbs shrink

Grow and increase and drink blood

Without God

...Pause for Blog Identification 

You are reading

Sean Crawford

Calgary

April

2020 

Bonus Material

Distasteful Yankee imperialism: 

During Obama’s administration, the U.S. built enough oil pipelines (according to someone I overheard) to reach to the moon. The only pipeline that was opposed? The one that would have reached over the U.S. to almost meet tidewater in Texas, to almost break the U.S. world monopoly on buying Canadian oil. (It stops at a refinery) Meanwhile, both Europe and the U.S. have oodles of pipelines, but Canada, with the longest coastline in the free world, somehow has no room for either of the three—count ‘em, three—pipelines that would have gotten the oil out to Canada’s tidal coasts, escaping American clutches. Two were killed, the last survivor has been on life support for a few years: We will see what happens. 

As for the one that stops in Texas, at least this week our province invested heavily to get that pipeline finally built. We'll see.

In Canada, when someone proposed to “follow the money” to see who was funding anti-pipeline efforts, it was the communists and other leftists who were opposed, and were quoted saying so in the newspaper. Sure, the leftists like transparency for others, but communism is an ideology, and as with any ideology, their reality is stone, transparency is opposed. 

Decades ago, the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, was supposed to give Canadians permission to legally have their own culture. But I read once in the paper that U.S.capitalists keep winning every time they oppose Canadian culture in court, such as, for example, a Canadian country and western magazine, so that Yankees can make money selling their own music magazine across the border. 

Well, maybe instead of country and western, young Canadian guitarists can sing the blues. A pity, for I had always thought it was charming how Canadian western culture did not mean “wildness” or six-guns being worn. Truly the CBC would never make a violent TV show about Paladin on Have Gun Will Travel “…a knight without armour in a savage land”)

Incidentally, here’s a link to that Paladin song the kids sing in the Stephen King movie Stand By Me. I used to sing it 

For my U.S. readers, if you are pleased with having your plausible denial, then OK, but if any of you wish to take a grownup interest in what your government is doing to imperialize in your name, then I think you might painlessly start with the arthouse feature film State of Siege. 

Here is a link to Roger Ebert’s movie review, at the very end of which some U.S. companies are mentioned, including (“but not limited to,” adds my Yankee lawyer) the United Fruit Company.  

(As it happens, a business executive in my toastmaster club did a seven minute speech on the imperialism of the United Fruit Company) 

Or view ( link to Ebert’s review) view the mainstream feature film Missing starring Jack Lemon and Sissy Spacek. 

Or view (link to) the comprehensive-to-a-fault C.I.A. documentary On Company Business.

You may wonder:

By my posting this essay, am I hurting the feelings of, offending, my dear longhaired leftist fellow Canadians? No, I’m sorry to say. No, because those imperialist leftists, according to my blog research, won’t read my site.

Epilogue

Speaking of church music, in these COVID days you may wish to have a virtual choir, like this Youtube (three minute) spiritual, which has how to make one at the top of the comments. 

This song is on the Odyssey-inspired 1930’s movie with George Clooney, Brother Where Art Thou?

Brass Cannons Smash Reality

www.essaysbysean.blogspot.com

Hello Reader,

Got reality?

"Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it."

George Santayana.

Preface

Clive James died last week. 

He was an Australian philosopher and broadcaster. 

The CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) aired an old interview with him, and the BBC posted three links, including linking to an obituary.

As I'm sure James has, down the year I have wondered: Are tomorrow's war criminals already living among us, as children? Are we doomed to more wars and holocausts? Surely our safest path to avoid such things—although I know Vladimer Putin would disagree, as would the average guy in the street in China (They also disagree with justice for Hong Kong)—is to pursue "liberal democracy."

Clive James had a lifetime project: He wrote a tome, Cultural Amnesia, as part of his enthusiasm for democracy. His book excited me enough to indirectly lead to this essay that I first posted as The Brass Cannon back in December of 2010. I present it as my second re-run of 2019; the quotes that bookend it are from Clive's book.

Prologue

“… the liberal believes in the permanence of humanity’s imperfection, he resigns himself to a regime in which the good will be the result of numberless actions, and never the object of conscious choice. Finally, he subscribes to the pessimism that sees, in politics, the art of creating the conditions in which the vices of men will contribute to the good of the state.”

Raymond Aron, L’Opium Des Intellectuals p. 292

The Brass Cannon

The Brass Cannon. …Such a simple title, for such a big concept.

In the lengthy novel, the title object suddenly appears in the middle, is seen only for a paragraph, yet the shadow remains to the final page. 

The setting is an age when transport is so expensive that you generally bring only the clothes on your back. Hence the young viewpoint character is quietly amazed at the behavior of his traveling companion, his old professor. The prof doesn’t know if he will arrive alive, or, instead, suffer a heart attack from the escape of Earth’s vicious gravity. Yet, next to his body, Professor Bernardo de da Paz places a little brass cannon that he purchased on Earth. 

I sometimes wonder what would have been the affect if, on coffee tables scattered over America, that title had been there since the mid1960’s, glaring in mute accusation. The title of another novel from the same author, Stranger in a Strange Land, had been on the table at the house of the “idealistic” organizers of the tragic Kent State riot. “…Four dead in O-hi-o.” At the time I remember a few students quoting Mao: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” (or rifle or cannon)

The idealistic title The Brass Cannon, chosen by Robert Heinlein was, alas, changed by the editor, who apparently thought fans of sf wouldn’t recognize it as science fiction. (Idiot!) As for the actual title, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, it’s such a mouthful that I can’t bring myself to be critical of anyone who “disrespects” the book by calling it “Moon.”

An earlier version of Professor de la Paz would be the town doctor in Heinlein’s 1949  Red Planet subtitled A Colonial Boy on Mars. Like the Lunar doctor of philosophy, the Martian doctor of medicine was also a philosopher of simple things beyond the “biggies” like democracy and revolution. Once he reminisced about what television sets were originally intended for: His grandfather had witnessed TV sets in bars being used to show wrestling matches. I thought of this when the big expensive HD TV’s first came out: too expensive to be seen anywhere but in bars.

Another memorable line of the doctor’s, because he had been involved in local politics back on Earth, was (from memory) “Every law that was ever written opened up a new way to graft.” 

Perhaps he’s right. Perhaps graft is as practical as a cannon. When my hometown of Calgary, Alberta was considering a “number of bags” limit on weekly garbage collection, an alderman disparaged the idea saying, “People will come out with bags the size of (the town of) Cochrane.” Money and practicality, not idealism, was again the deciding issue when City Hall considered the idea of changing all the residential speed limits from 50 kilometers per hour to 40 kph. I don’t recall whether the morality of subverting the integrity, the honest calculations, of the professionals of road engineering was even mentioned. What I do recall is that changing all those signs would cost one or more million dollars, and that, anyway, many drivers practically ignore their speedometers. The idea was dropped. (But got revived in 2019)

I enjoy driving. When I go cruising along in the good old U.S. of A. I am mindful of how, for an awake citizenry, the Constitution is a practical force: Hence I drive the “Military and Interstate Highway System” often shortened to “the interstate,” a road that, according to a professor, needed the plea of “military” use to get around the law, written generations before Hitler’s autobahn, against ever building any such road systems in the US.

After opening the sunroof and singing “Do you know the way to San Jose?” I might try a 1960’s advertising jingle from the Saturday morning cartoons of my youth: 

You can eat them on the run; eat them just for fun,

Eat them when you have a party,

When you want a snack, you can eat them from the pack,

Or warm and crispy, good and hearty,

Pop tarts, great new treat,

New-ew-ew from Kellog's,

Pop tarts.

Except they weren’t new. 

And they weren’t from Kellog's. 

Whoever had first started producing the tarts has gone the way of all unpersons. 

Kellog's saw, copied, and then, to quote a confederate cavalry officer, got there “first-est with the most-est.” Maybe "That’s not fair!" not ideal, but that’s how things work in this world of Saturday morning tarts and toy cannons. As my friend, a religious fundamentalist small-business owner put it, “As long as you are within the letter of the law you are morally OK.” The executives at Enron did break the law, and were prosecuted. The men on Wall Street who plunged our entire planet into a recession didn’t, and weren’t. (One chuckles at the term which assigns agency, "Wall Street meltdown," being glossed over, and replaced by the no-fault term "recession")

It should come as no surprise that what happens within a practical democratic nation also happens between groups of nations. When I was with NATO I often went mountaineering in Switzerland. Along the mountain roads, quite blatantly, were inset rusty brown tank traps, still operational, these being a big part of the reason why Hitler’s autobahns were never extended into Switzerland. The point is not that the Swiss diplomats would sing songs of peace, in sweet harmony, with their cultured German counterparts, but, rather, the Swiss could give a sober accounting of the tank traps, steel cannons and so forth. It must have taken several days of diplomatic meetings to recite the entire military inventory.

As for the earliest brass or iron cannons, according to legend they often were inscribed with: “The final argument of kings.”

Any colony, whether on Mars or Luna, that builds their own cannons to enable them to safely open up their minds to be able to think, and then to argue “in favor of revolt,” is a colony that includes “dirty traitors” against the king. Unless they succeed. Then the former colony includes “founding fathers.” And the new state receives diplomatic recognition.

(Here in town a college stand up comic noticed that many a young student has had his father give recognition to having one’s “own roof.” He asked: What’s so magical about a roof?)

Sometimes cannons are set along the coast. My brother’s university dormitory, at UBC, “Fort Camp,” was an old barracks for the shore defense gunners. (Against the Japanese) Back in the old days of sailing ships the distance a shore cannon could project force was 3 miles. It is most assuredly not coincidence that for so many years the legal International Limit for territorial waters was also 3 miles. 

Meanwhile, from the age of sail and on through the steam age, one of the best navies has always been the Royal Navy. I remember as a youth, back when the limit was usually 3 or 12 (depending on the country) miles, reading a British navy book where all of the ship-to-ship missiles, and shore to ship,  had a range of 200 miles. While I was reading the book, world diplomats were meeting to discuss extending the International Limit.

I like cannons, and in writing this all too brief essay I don’t mean to discourage the idealism of any young students at Kent State or UBC. If the mass of men and women, unlike you and me, don’t voluntarily restrain themselves unless they are forced to, well, "it’s no biggie." In my own lifetime I have cherished seeing a goodly spreading of democracy and the furthering of international cooperation. For me, knowing the Rules of Human Behavior is like having rules for the writing of sonnets: it just makes things more fun. The Rules mean that good laws, whether in Calgary or internationally, will be practical, enforceable, and suggest a side effect of graft. “A force in motion continues until it meets an opposite motion.” 

It all starts with taking people as they are: They mean well, of course, and, like my dear religious friend, they need forces both judicial and physical, even brass cannons, to help guide them to stay safely on the road. From a distance I can watch generations of people passing by as they keep trudging along the low road to morality. 

The high road, lost in the misty uplands, is only for the angels.

Epilogue 

“In the course of the last forty years, the only part of the world that has enjoyed peace is the continent divided between two zones of political civilization both of them armed with atomic bombs.”

Raymond Aron, Les Dernieres Annees Du Siecle (The Last Years of the Century), p. 68



Sean Crawford

Calgary, at the ending of

The first decade of the second millennium

Footnotes

 ~ The man quoted above would be pleased to know that the European Union, instead of  an individual, was awarded the 2012 nobel peace prize

~The two quotes are from James Clive’s essay on Raymond Aron, from pages 32 and 39, quoted in Cultural Amnesia. ( a really exciting book)

~William Shakespeare did not invent the phrase “pot calling the kettle black” but he used the concept in one of his comedies, and he used a “cannon equivalent” in (I think) the comedy Twelfth Night. In Will’s day there was a problem with cannons: as they aged they weakened, and you never knew if one was going to burst into dangerous shards. So I laughed when a character retorted, “That was ill shot with elder cannon.”

How Humor Helps the Agenda

essaysbysean.blogspot.com …

September, Friday the 13th, 2019

Hello Reader,

Got humor, as a precision tool to help a formal meeting?

Prologue

Purpose

Humor concepts

During a convention

The Theory

In conclusion 

Prologue

It’s so nice to think I can help people laugh, as I used to be “humor challenged”: That’s what comes of being a child survivor. What I forget is that others can be challenged too.

I was reminded recently at a writer’s circle. A few of us were casually gathered on a Sunday afternoon. I read a bit from my blog (April 2019) about the humor background of abuse survivor Pat Conroy, (The Great Santini) saying that it’s normal to X, (I forget) Y, (I forget) and Z (save up a funny event from the morning to tell folks when when they come home at night).  A dear writer looked surprised, (maybe for X or Y, I forget) and exclaimed, “I never do that!” She wasn’t a nerd—she had a gorgeous personality and a pretty smile—but she was, I guessed, a survivor like me.

Purpose

For her and others, to express 

some concepts of group humor for helping a meeting agenda. 

In the spirit of My College Mentor (archived January 2019) who said he could find “teachable moments” from our behaviour—we were truly a class with much to learn—I could try to find specific lessons from our AGM for the AWCS, also known as, aka, Annual General Meeting for the Alexandra Writers Centre Society.

Fellow readers, I don’t necessarily expect you to care about my fellow artists having an AGM, but I expect to better express things by using real life examples.

Humor Concepts

I was almost the first to comment for our first agenda item: Turns out folks badly wanted an AWCS credit card, but our bylaws we aren’t allowed any debt. I stuck up my hand to say that a bank debit card would not be debt, since it only spends money in the account. Someone swiftly pointed out: The reason individual staff were resorting to using their personal credit cards was that you could buy stuff over the telephone, and so forth. 

To forestall lots of “and so forth” explanations, and yes, to salve my poor ego, I said in a penetrating voice, “I just want to say: ‘Oh. Now-w-w I get it.’” Laughter.

Note: Yes, I was talking for my own ego’s sake, but also to set an example of safe participation, and to prevent the group wasting time explaining the “and so forth,” AND to help the group laugh. After all, AGMs can be awfully cut and dried. 

Concept: Before you joke, or speak up in a meeting, apply Sean’s patented 50% rule. If your purpose is not “50% or more” to help the group… then don’t joke. 

Closely related: If you don’t know your purpose for speaking up, then STOP until you do. Taking a good full second to check your purpose can prevent a lot of empty words.

Fellow citizens, you may recall that in July I mentioned—or at least I meant to—some research from different corners of the world that showed that populist leaders such as Trump will get into power not because a given country is objectively rich or poor, but because of the “income disparity” within a country. 

(How President Reagan turned the key to start economic disparity in America is in Gwynne Dyer’s latest book, reviewed in my post An Experiment Called Civilization archived July 2019)

I mention economic disparity here because during our meeting we talked of building connections with the half-built grand edifice next door. Turns out we were approached by the future occupants. The new building will be for “active seniors” who are “very wealthy”: having walls of mahogany, and —say it with a hushed French accent— a concierge. 

Right before we talked of this, we had been talking about raising membership rates for all of us except our senior citizens, because, as a director said, “On a fixed income, it’s brutal out there.” As it happens, some of us writers are starving artists, AND let’s face it, “disparity,” since the Reagan years, can be “the elephant in the room” that everyone is pretending to ignore. And pretending not to be gritting their teeth about. 

So I spoke up with enthusiasm: “Well, I’m an active senior. After I cook a bowl of ramen noodles I’m going to actively take it over there and eat it.” Laughter, much laughter.

Concept: Taking up the group’s time with a quick reference to an “elephant” is never out of order. Come to think of it, that’s why society needs its artists. To put paint onto invisible elephants. Again, my joke was for others, not “about me.” (Although I pass for being a senior because my hair has gone white—also, I’m in my sixties, past the age of senior-hood in the UK)

Fellow rebels, you may like a reminder: The harshest truths, of course, can only be told with humor. In the court of the Red Queen, only the jester may tell the truth and keep his head on his shoulders… 

Again, the role of artists, including writers, is relevant here: I once saw a communist movie, with English subtitles, where a painter, devalued and scorned, yelled, “You (society) need me!” Even under godless communism, or an oppressive Muslim theocracy, there needs to be art. 

In talking about our AWCS membership rates, some folks compared them to various comparable artist organizations. Well. Can you name any? I hated to be harsh, but I spoke up, “(oh, I don’t know,) If I was a writer, I wouldn’t know that the Writers Guild of Alberta charged a fee, and (lowering my voice sheepishly) I wouldn’t care.” Much laughter. The executive director spoke up that we could inform folks about other organizations and…

Concept: A quick funny one-liner can be a catalyst. As in getting the director talking. Once something has been said, a perspective unblocked, or an elephant made real, then people can say more on the subject, or at least have it in their awareness. Laughter often comes from surprise, and surprise often comes from something new, something that needs to be added to the group’s vocabulary.

I believe humor is a precision tool: firstly as a practical means to help a meeting be more productive; then secondly as a means to quality of life. As when meeting 

during a convention.

Last month I attended a weekend for readers and writers, When Words Collide. Events started Friday at 1:00 p.m. On Saturday morning I attended the very earliest Words seminar of the day, where an author, Adam Dreece, stood at the front to share his hard-won wisdom about independent marketing and publicity. Some of us had staggered in hung over, some still waking up. Dreece was a conscientious fellow, who made reference to us meeting so early, and hoping he was teaching OK. Early in his lecture he paused to ask: “Any questions or comments so far?”

I decided to be supportive: My hand went up. “A comment. This is the best seminar I’ve attended all day!” Laughter.

Dreece said, “That’s the second best compliment I’ve had all day!” Laughter. Then he took time to inform us that he got that “second best” line from the old spy comedy Get Smart, adding that when he was with his kids driving past a tourist monument such as a Ukrainian giant Easter egg, he would exclaim, “Wow, that’s the second biggest Easter egg I’ve ever seen!”

Concept: Before you do an “increase our quality of life” joke take time to do my special check-for-time gut check, (not patented) asking yourself, “Is is OK to use the group’s time for this?” The fact that Dreece would ‘take my contribution and run with it’ is proof I had judged correctly. Come to think of it, if you don’t know, from doing your gut check, whether or not you are “grounded” and “centred” and “genuinely moved to speak” then you probably aren’t: Stay silent, there’ll be other chances to contribute.

The seminar rolled on. I was sitting beside Minkee Robinson, who has been published in the same British anthology as I, The Baby Shoes Project, (Named for the tragic Hemingway story) Late in the seminar Minkee was part of our “audience participation,” with something intelligent to say. Sometimes I can be intelligent too, so right after Minkee I shot up my hand again. “Yes?”

I grinned widely. “The lady beside me says, ‘This is still the best seminar she’s been to all day!’” Laughter and clapping. Yes!

“That is the third best compliment I’ve had all day.” Laughter.

Note: Saying indirectly, “The lady beside me says…” besides being funny in itself, allowed for a second of suspense; good jokes have suspense before the punchline.

Concept: Laughter is increased if there is repetition, or—and this is a form of repetition—if there is a reference to something said earlier in the meeting. You find this at events where there is a quick series of good humored speakers who keep spontaneously referring to something an earlier speaker had said. Sometimes successive speakers can really keep a theme going: The fact that all this wit is improvised, “live before their very eyes,” adds to the crowd’s enjoyment.

That’s all I have for recent concrete examples. Any nerd wishing to learn to do group humor would do well to start with the concrete, and then move to  

the theory 

I would remind you, dear reader, that my 50% rule applies to things such as venting your spleen, expressing your pet peeve and putting yourself into the spotlight. Don’t-don’t-don’t use up a whole formal group’s time for your own private purpose. Your spleen will still be there when you retire with informal friends to the bar. 

If, say, “getting attention” is only a minor part of your motivation then you will be forgiven: I always am. But if you’re being too egotistical, as the flip side of being too needy, then it’s like showing fear before a dog. Folks at a formal meeting or seminar will notice, and they won’t be charitable. So first do the gut check for time, and for the 50% thing too.

In conclusion, to review my points… Actually, the theory right above is your conclusion. And you can review each of my points by looking for words in bold. 

But if you still want a final word, then OK, this I believe: 

At the formal group level, properly and precisely employed, humor helps us all… and thereby helps world peace. 

Sean Crawford

September,

High River

2019

Footnotes:

~The theory of using humor to help a group advance against stormy winds of fear is in my essay Kubrick and Work or Fear archived December 2016.

~Today’s essay was held back from September to allow space for posting War of the Worlds poetry and essay re-runs, such as last weeks Sarah Connor one. Why? Because I am still trying to free up my time to maybe begin to start to attempt to tackle the writing of fiction.

~ The weekend convention title is a pun on the old Philip Wylie novel, later made into a 1950’s black and white movie.

~We liked hearing Adam Dreece. I haven’t read any of his fiction yet, but I enjoyed his book Five Critical Things for Successful Book Signings. It’s about far, far more than signings.

~Minkee Robinson has a story soon to be published in a school reader. Ca-ching! She only found her acceptance letter because she checked her spam folder. Close call!

~Sometimes I answer people: “My hobby? Writing essays.” As I see their eyes begin drooping from boredom, I hasten to say” Not academic ones, not like school kids write…” Then their eyes open again. But if, dear reader, you like academic writing, and you have some cash to spend, then here you go, here is your link to an article called Meeting Mirth… an article that I don’t ever plan to read myself.

URLs Again

essaysbysean.blogspot.com

Hello Reader,

Got a yearning for URLs again?

(Again? Yes: This post is the sequel to a light-hearted post that hasn’t run yet)

I have been perusing my older essays. As you know, I like to collect my various links all on one blog page. This time, unlike my post of (hasn’t run yet), these older URL’s were not intended as “brights” at the end of a page; therefore this “URLs Again” post has more prose, less music and darker content.

If a URL here is not clickable, then I would expect you, Dear Reader, to use your “Copy” (not cut) and “Paste” feature to go to the web sites. With my usual contempt for SEO, Search Engine Optimization, I present no links on a silver platter for “surfers” who are “patience challenged.” (“Why not link?” you ask. See my top ten (by visitor count) essay No Links is Good Links archived July 2012)

Bullying:

(God bless society for slow-w-w-ly starting to become ready to begin to face the effects of child bullying)

Being returned to a sixth form bullying environment can later cause PTSD-like trauma for a wife and mother 

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-49362577

(After referring to a controversial Bullies and Teachers quote…) I had felt foolish from the thought of readers scorning me for daring to say that children would bully and sexually assault each other. But they do. Since then, here is a story where a teacher called a six year old victim a silly girl. Her assault from peers during school playtime only became undeniable when she was too sore to sit down.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-49084906

And here’s a new story where the mother notes that today her “raped on a play date” son “is not the same boy”

https://www.bbc.com/news/education-43884776

Of course I like our dear school teachers… AND I’m also feeling strident today, like a new feminist.

Music videos:

A whimsical parody song by a (former) history teacher, as an assignment for her night school class. 

It made my computer technician howl with laughter—he thanked me for showing him. By the way, that’s her own child in the video, how sweet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO0-7YAxxDY&feature=c4-overview&list=UUAiABuhVSMZJMqyv4Ur5XqA

Same history teacher, singing like Lady Gaga for Bastille Day. The link was in an essay on alienated young folks in big cities getting caught up in communism, holy terrorism and other revolutions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXsZbkt0yqo

David Wong of Cracked Magazine has a piece that uses funny photos to explain a serious subject. 

Although now a liberal city slicker, Wong grew up in the country He remembers how it was, and can still “method act” what it’s like to be rural.

Six Reasons for Trump’s Rise that No One Talks About.

Two favorite quotes from Wong: 

To those ignored, suffering people, Donald Trump is a brick chucked through the window of the elite. “Are you assholes listening now?” 

And “But you might as well take time to try to understand them, because I'm telling you, they'll still be around long after Trump is gone.”

https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about/

The Ca-na-da song 

that all of we who knew centennial year sang. 

I found it by using a search engine. This is NOT, unfortunately, the version that played on TV commercials, causing the CBC telephones to ring off the hook with folks requesting the lyrics. That one the CBC must have lost, as I saw no trace of it during Canada’s 150th anniversary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vE17TazIvM

Blog essay 

Ten Things Most Americans Don’t Know About America. Written by an American, but not by an “Ugly American.” Mark Manson, living abroad, has truly mingled as an equal, and has a Brazilian wife.

https://markmanson.net/10-things-most-americans-dont-know#.tb3xib:Ta4m

Song by Carol King of Anticipation, (These are the good old days) sung outdoors

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NwP3wes4M8

*** *** Got Feminism? *** ***

There is a viking exhibit on now at the royal museum in Edmonton. Turns out the scientists were wrong about gender:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/sep/15/how-the-female-viking-warrior-was-written-out-of-history

Today feminist theory is not from regular folks in consciousness raising circles, reflecting on lived experience, but from ivory tower academics:

http://quillette.com/2016/08/26/what-i-learned-in-my-womens-studies-classes/

News story: As regards a women’s liberation “laundry list” of the attributes of domestic violence and emotional abuse, only now being recognized by the Scottish police, old-is-new-again, here is a link. I had placed the link not on my blog but in one of my comments on Penelope Trunk’s blog post about why there is no “hashtag me too” for domestic abuse.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-42890990

Blog page: Curiously, although Penelope’s post has her usual vast number of readers, it has far less than her usual number of commenters. Some readers could only bear to contact her privately.

https://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2019/07/20/the-reason-theres-no-metoo-for-domestic-violence/#comments

One can submit to Allah and still, just like the Muslim with daughters I wrote about in London, believe in basic rights for women, even unto infuriating the Mullahs in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. The London attraction with the most visitors is the Tate Modern:

“At the exhibit gift shop—some shelves and counters by a cafe—I picked up a collection called Sister Outsider, essays and speeches by Audre Lorde, the U.S. Black poet and university teacher. About a decade before the taking down of the iron curtain, she went to Uzbekistan, a Soviet Socialist Republic. She wrote on page 29: 

QUOTE 

But she talked most movingly of the history of the women of Uzbekistan, a history which deserves more writing about than I can give it here. The ways in which the women of this area, from 1924 on, fought to come out from behind complete veiling, from Moslem cloister to the twentieth century. How they gave their lives to go bare-faced, to be able to read. Many of them fought and many of them died very terrible deaths in this battle, killed by their own fathers and brothers. It is a story of genuine female heroism and persistence. I thought of the South African women in 1956 who demonstrated and died rather than carry pass books. For the Uzbeki women, revolution meant being able to show their faces and go to school, and they died for it. A bronze statue stands in a square of Samarkand, monument to the fallen women and their bravery. Madam went on to discuss equality between the sexes. How many women now headed collective farms, how many women Ministers. She said there were a great many ways in which women governed; there was no difference between men and women now in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics… 

UNQUOTE”

*** *** End Feminism *** ***

Another blog feature. 

I make no comment to you about this one, showing diverse views, thanks to the US freedom of speech, regarding US management of social resources.

http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2014/01/why-does-america-have-potholed-roads.html

Song by Pete Seeger, singing Who killed Norma Jean, from my essay about Group Level Integrity of February 2012

http://www.musictory.com/music/Pete+Seeger/Who+Killed+Norma+Jean

*** *** Start Doctor Who *** *** 

music by fans

Here is a sentimental fan collage over the song I don’t deserve you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGrCB5n-bbU

fan music video

a gorgeous fan music video that has glimpses of Clara's last Christmas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2Q97xHs-NE

Song 

If you remember Don Maclean’s sympathetic song “Starry starry night,” and if you don’t mind “stills,” 

(still photographs from the moving pictures) 

then here is the sympathetic song “Chances,” performed by Athlete, with lyrics, where the doctor gives aide and comfort to the greatest painter who ever lived. 

Incidentally, as they go up the art museum stairs, on the landing is a statue of a Greek hero using his polished shield as a mirror to see Medusa.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4aVKQZaSmY

Drama clip: “It’s OK to change, as long as you keep moving”: The 11th doctor’s fated change from his life as #11 into #12, with comfort from a dearly departed companion. You see a close up of her wedding ring hand as she goes down the bannister. It’s a comfort to fans: the girl who did stripper-grams married at last; she and her husband passed on at the same time. As Amy said, “Together, or not at all.” 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwacha2xLuo

*** *** End Doctor Who *** ***

Lengthy BBC news feature documenting how you can immigrate “on paper” 

and yet “in reality” not like or respect your new homeland, 

but for this family, 

in the end, love finds a way 

“I was forced to marry my cousin”

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-48949483

Seven Reasons Why Europeans Don’t Like the EU

From the Washington Post newspaper, 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/06/25/7-reasons-why-some-europeans-hate-the-e-u/

Live action Song, by anime fans, of gentle sympathy, like a Gregorian sacred chant, 

composed in late 20th century Japan for Elfen Lied, 

Surely Elfen Lied is the most violent anime I will ever see, about abandoned children, some innocent, some not, all trying hard to be brave. 

Very moving, but I can’t recommend it to anyone my age because of the violence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvCpCg0sGkg 

Another version of that song, illium, that is NOT linked on my blog: 

I have just now found a full choir in a Kiev church with beautiful overlapping parts. “Comments are disabled,” perhaps to stop ignorant anime-fans who would scornfully say the innocent choir doesn’t know the splendid anime. Nice to see that Godless communism did not extinguish religion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOfsfTLXxwg

At Japanese pop culture festivals, 

Down in the US of A, 

the fans will always make music videos at a sunny campus, or convention centre, amongst warm green grass and open waters.

The only Youtube music exception to sunshine is this one, filmed in my adopted home town of Calgary, 

up in Canada, 

with background snow. 

The music is from the end of the movie Wreck-it Ralph, by Owl City.

https://vimeo.com/56749712

A long movie review, 

4/5 stars for a one-of-a-kind flic, Boyhood, on Roger Ebert’s web site. Apparently the movie, rated R, asks questions: 

is “normal” a construct?; can we change ourselves?; and can we “put away childish things?” There are over 130 comments, which is unusual.

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/boyhood-2014

A sour lengthy book review about a book’s “social context,” which I don’t agree with, but handy for young people curious to realize how certain others think they see behind the curtain of this Omelas we live in. 

I can understand writers becoming strident, but I have little patience for writers driven to sourness. The review is of Book Two of Simone de Beauvoir’s autobiography.

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2012/03/the-prime-of-life-by-simone-de-beauvoir.html

Music for Parents, opening credits

of nice anime shows:

If your teenager is trying to tell you that Japanese cartoons, anime, is NOT like childish funny American Saturday morning cartoons—with childish funny opening credits— and with American- style super-short attention spans, then here are three 13-episode “story arc” shows (one season) you can watch together:

The first is where a virtual high school has a few deceased real teens among virtual characters. The setting is limbo, before heaven. The angel-student at the piano is all alone without friends, because she wants the other students to move on past limbo into heaven, but they are “rebels against the God.” Lots of guns, but amusing, because of course no one in limbo can die. Called Angel Beats!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjnOt6xaxXg

This one is where older big angel kids take care of younger angel kids until they can move on to heaven. They live in a walled city with rustic wind turbines, full of peaceful humans. Again no deaths, no guns, no wicked witches. Called Haibane Renmei

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjnOt6xaxXg

This one is of a lone traveler with a talking motorcycle. The first of the 13 episodes, with criminal people on the road, is a foil to set up all the lawful city-states to visit. Only if you truly hate the first episode should you skip ahead to the 13th episode. (If you do, then you’ll skip back to episode 2, for sure) Practising pulling out the pistol is not to be a western gunslinger, but to follow the eastern sensei’s teachings of the “way,” or “do,” as in ‘way of the tea ceremony’ or ‘way of the empty hand.’ (karate-do) As it happens, the tea ceremony is as rigid as tai chi or a martial arts kata.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVgHN8cfy1I

Here’s a link to a nice blog post, 

inviting the reader to feel “yes!” and a sense of community, about how writing on her blog would “hold memories” and “change perception of time” and “extend time.” Well expressed. I couldn’t comment on it myself, because the comment thingy would not take my URL, but you may have better luck.

https://margaretgraw.com/2019/02/16/writing-as-soul-food/

What is a nerd? 

Roger Ebert explains in his movie review of Revenge of the Nerds II

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/revenge-of-the-nerds-ii-nerds-in-paradise-1987

A blog post about why trying something with low odds of success can be good for you, by one of my favorite bloggers, a fellow I have corresponded with, Scott Berkun. 

…Queerly enough, the link was in my post about modern Arabs still being tribal, something westerners need to admit before they can ever (mistakenly) hope to impose western values.

https://scottberkun.com/2014/why-bad-odds-can-be-good/

Feature article by a pilot 

on how passenger jets are pressurized, and whether it’s safe for an air marshal to fire his pistol inside the cabin at 30,000 feet.

https://www.airspacemag.com/flight-today/how-things-work-cabin-pressure-2870604/

Fiction: From the publisher, lengthy excerpt of the first three chapters of an award winning Chinese science fiction novel, translated into English. The communism history matches what I’ve read elsewhere.

https://www.tor.com/2014/09/30/the-three-body-problem-silent-spring-excerpt-chapters-1-3/

A letter by Captain Kirk’s hero, President Lincoln, read aloud by General Marshal, the best WWII general the US had, according to business guru Peter Drucker. As for General Patton? There is a good reason other generals in Europe outranked Patton, while Marshal outranked them all. His duty was to stay in the pentagon, at the request of the president, and that is where he served out the war. After the war the president made him the secretary of state, and insisted that his name be on the great plan to rebuild Europe: The Marshal Plan. The reading is from early in the movie Saving Private Ryan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLDvVaLFqXI

I wanted to include here my link to a South Korean Youtube of the song Marching Through Georgia but I see it is now restricted as being “private.”

Lastly, something NOT linked in my blog:

LENGTHY printed news feature that I once printed out to show a mother: My disabled son- ‘the nobleman, the philanderer, the detective’

https://www.bbc.com/news/disability-47064773

Sean Crawford

Calgary

2019

Footnotes: 

~From just two days ago comes an article on why kids become bullies, and it’s not from reasons we have traditionally assumed:

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190913-why-some-children-become-merciless-bullies

~Here’s that controversial quote mentioned for the second link at the top, using the original fonts. I’ve included a preceding paragraph to give context. 

Sorry to say, I just cannot imagine a teacher reading this quote out loud at a staff meeting. Let’s hope I’m wrong; let’s hope I’m being “imagination challenged”:

QUOTE

Since my day, according to reports by kids in the book, there are now anti-bullying assemblies, sometime complete with skits. I doubt they are any more effective than those assemblies in my day that pleaded with us to intervene if we saw someone vandalizing. 

(Incidentally, at my school, vandalism included the main girls “smokers” washroom having every steel stall door ripped away) 

Of course we all thought our teachers were crazy to suggest we intervene. Today the assemblies are probably as useless as ever: Obviously they didn’t help any of the kids testifying.

I wonder how many boys and girls, bullied and sexually assaulted, end up losing their innocence … growing up to be well groomed, well employed, socially skilled adults moving among us, adults who are social isolates because they have lost something along the way… A kid above says, “I just can’t be around people anymore.”

UNQUOTE