And In This Corner.....

 As a boy growing up, I loved professional wrestling.  Back in the day before cable made professional wrestling a national phenomenon, it was a local production.  I discovered wrestling on one of the local stations out of Amarillo, Texas.  In those days, the local heroes were the Funk family.  They were led by the wrestling legend, Dory Funk who was semi-retired when I was a kid.  The NWA world champion was his son, Dory Funk Jr.  I rarely got to see his matches on our Saturday afternoon wrestling programs.  So my favorite and the favorite of all the boys in Gruver was Dory Jr.'s little brother, Terry Funk.  Wrestling was the ultimate story of good against evil, and the Funk family was definitely the good guys.  No one in their right mind would be caught cheering against any of the Funk family.

Dory Funk Sr. and Dory Funk Jr.

Terry Funk

After a few years of being a huge Terry Funk fan, my family moved to Graham.  One of my adjustments was the loss of my Saturday afternoon wrestling programs.  My Grandma Mae introduced me to Channel 11 out of Dallas and professional wrestling, LIVE from the Sportatorium!  I was really excited to see in the TV Guide that Terry Funk was going to be in the main event.  You cannot imagine how shocked and disappointed I was to learn that my hero, Terry Funk was the villain!  To make matters worse, the evil Von Erich's were the local heroes.  Talk about conflicted.  After living in Graham for awhile, I became a fan of Fritz Von Erich and his sons Kevin, David, and later Kerry.  Instead of practicing Dory Funk Sr.'s spinning toe hold, all the neighborhood boys became masters of Fritz Von Erich's dreaded Iron Claw.  

Fritz
Kevin, David, & Kerry Von Erich

No one in the Channel 11 viewing area would dream of cheering for any wrestler, other than one of the Von Erich's.  In the mid 1980's, pro wrestling went to a nationwide audience with favorites like Hulk Hogan and villains like Andre the Giant (another hero from my Amarillo wrestling memories).  The WWE exploded on cable channels and overtook the locally produced programs.  Wrestling became even more cartoon-ish with purely evil villains and purely good  heroes who eventually would win the hearts of the fans, even while losing matches due to incompetent referees.  Somewhere along the way, maybe because fans no longer had a "local" hero, things changed.  Fans split into two camps.  Of course the majority of fans supported the hero, the good guy, but some cheered on the bad guys.  The good guy was seen as too clean, too wholesome.  Pro wrestling seemed to push promote the villains even more than the heroes.  A large number of fans took pride in their support of the villains.  Eventually, this attitude seemed to bleed over into other sports.  In Texas from the 1970's through the late 1980's, everyone was a fan of the Dallas Cowboys.  People who moved to Texas from other areas might follow their former hometown favorite, but eventually they almost always became Cowboy fans.  Sure there were a few oddballs that grew tired of the way the Cowboys were worshiped, and became vocal fans of Bum Phillips' Houston Oilers, but they were rare.  But as the "pro wrestling" mentality became more prevalent, some football fans started buying Redskins' gear or worse, Steelers' merchandise.  Fans weren't necessarily cheering for a team, but they seemed to be cheering against the local favorite.  

When we moved to Colorado, I saw the perfect example of this attitude.  Of course in Colorado, the Broncos are the NFL team to follow.  At the time we moved, the Broncos weren't too far removed from their Super Bowl championships with John Elway as quarterback.  In the store I managed, Broncos' gear was the top seller, but it was followed very closely by the Broncos most hated rival, the Oakland Raiders.  The majority of the Raiders' fans weren't so much Raiders' fans as they were Bronco haters.  As a football or just overall sports nerd, I would talk about the Raiders, current or past and most of the Raider "fans" had no clue about their chosen team, either current or past.  I think it's just an example of the contrary attitude that most people used to outgrow after their teen rebellion years.  I think an increasingly large number of people no longer outgrow the rebellious stage, but take pride in their unique-ness.  

This attitude has spilled over from the entertainment of professional wrestling to legitimate sports, to the rest of everyday life in America today.  It's a little jarring to read history and learn about men spending the evenings in the local tavern discussing and debating religion, politics, science and so many other subjects from a base of knowledge.  Most Americans were self-educated.  They listened, they read, they were interested in gaining knowledge.  The quote from Emerson that I mentioned before, "foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds," was a popularly held opinion.  A person's position on an issue should evolve as that person gains knowledge.  That no longer seems to be the case.  There is no longer a debate.  A person is a Global Warming believer or denier, a 9-11 truther or a Muslim hating Conservative, a Tea Partier or a Progressive, a baby killing pro-choicer or a woman hating right to lifer.  Having a debate about these issues is not a bad thing.  What is so destructive right now is how uninformed our positions are.  Rather than having an honest debate, we pick a side and defend it to the very end.  When the chosen side is not backed up by a base of knowledge, the debate soon turns to the name-calling we heard so much of during the most recent campaign season.  When opinions are not backed by knowledge, manipulation becomes much easier.  Honesty is not necessary if the public is not curious enough to do their own research.  

It is very discouraging to talk to people about the recent election and learn the basis of their choice.  It is almost never "for" someone or something, but "against" the other person or policy.  If our society is going to survive, we must have intelligent debate on issues.  We have to have intellectual honesty from ourselves and our candidates.  We have to force our politicians to be honest.  If they talk about the rich paying their "fair share," make them say what they believe is fair.  Is raising taxes on those making over $250,000 a year going to help solve our fiscal problems, or is it in the interest of redistribution of wealth (are they,  or are we honest enough to call it what it is - Marxism) to buy votes?  Is it all right for your candidate to listen in on cell phone conversations, or hold those suspected of supporting terrorists indefinitely without charging them with a crime, gather information from private e-mails, or to send our troops to war without the approval of Congress, but not ok for the candidate from the other side?  We need to read and learn enough to know what we believe and what we support.  Then we need to read and learn what candidates from all sides not only say they will do, but what they have done and are doing.  The sad thing is that we live in an age where all this information and more is easier to find than ever before in the history of mankind, we are just too lazy or uninterested to find it.  

I have seen interviews with a woman who said she thinks the president did an "acceptable job" in the Benghazi situation.  "Ben Ghazi is hard to predict, you can never tell what that man will do."  I have a friend who voted for Obama because Romney would cut programs that help single women.  But she works a job that pays her in cash, so she doesn't pay taxes on it.  I have relatives that vote Democrat because "I'm a fiscally conservative bleeding heart liberal."  How can anyone claim to be fiscally conservative and support the president and his $6 trillion and climbing debt?  I have another relative that when questioned about individual policies holds positions to the right of the most conservative Libertarian, yet votes Democrat every election because Republicans only care about the rich.  I know several people that didn't vote at all because there was "no difference between the candidates."  These are the pro wrestling voters, their votes have no basis in fact, only in emotion, or possibly in rebellion.  The political consultants call these people "low information voters."  Stalin had a more accurate, if less politically correct description.  He called them "useful idiots."  

 

Wolverines in the Closet

When Raelynn was about two and a half years old, she visited her MeMe for a couple of days.  MeMe taught her to pretend. When she got home, Raelynn was talking to imaginary friends, having teas, and doing all those things that little kids do.  One of her favorite books was about animals in the forest going to a bear's house during a storm.  We made up more parts of the story with gophers and wolverines.  For some reason, Raelynn really got into the gophers and wolverines.  Soon she was chasing imaginary gophers around our house in Amarillo.  

One day, our landlord, a really nice man in his 60's, was over working on the plumbing under our bathroom sink.  Raelynn ran into the bathroom, and very excitedly asked if the gophers had run through there.  The wolverines chased them out of the closet!  Mr. Frost pulled his head out from under the sink and asked me, "did she say gophers?"  I said, "yeah, the wolverines chased them out of the closet."
 

Kids naturally have imagination.  Play helps develop it.  And so do good toys.  Old fashioned toys like dolls, blocks, tinkertoys, Lincoln logs, and yes, even toy guns.  Our toys have become so advanced, that imagination is no longer required.  Even the toy guns that we sold at Alco make the shooting noise for you.  No more yelling POW as you shoot.  The end of the barrel lights up with a red light and the gun makes noise for you.  

Imagination is harder to teach as kids get older.  Ego gets into the way.  Don't want to look stupid in front of your friends.  But still good teachers in elementary and middle school use imagination and pretend.  Raelynn's teacher in 6th grade taught a section on the Renaissance and gave titles to everyone (he was Duke), and they had a night where they even cooked dishes from the era.  And in one section, they put Columbus on trial for genocide.  I guess imagination can be both used and mis-used.  

Imagination is the first step in the invention and innovation process.  Imagine it, plan it, then create it.  It's also the first step in defense.  You have to imagine what the bad guys will do.  The 9-11 commission said that the biggest reason the attacks were successful was that America had a "failure of imagination."  No one could imagine that the hijacking of airliners could be a suicide mission.  The crews of airliners were trained to cooperate with hijackers and let negotiators take over when the planes landed.  It was never imagined that the planes would be used as a weapon and the hijackers weren't planning to survive the attack.  We never imagined that eleven men with boxcutters could kill 3,000 innocent Americans and bring down the two tallest buildings in the country.


I am fearful that our imaginations might be failing us again.  Like I said before, I never thought that candidate Obama was dangerous.  In order to be elected, he would have to be, at the very most, just a little off-center of the beliefs of the majority of Americans.  And to be re-elected, he would have to reflect the beliefs of the majority.  But, like the terrorists, he and his followers (or leaders) are not thinking like traditional politicians.  They are not looking to be re-elected.  Just as they promised in their campaign, they are trying to fundamentally change America.  Mainstream America did not imagine that that fundamental change meant taking over banks, auto makers, and the entire health care industry - and everything that could possibly be lumped into health care.  Fortunately, America woke up and made a lot of noise protesting the health care takeover.  Some of the congresspersons are realizing that the President's agenda is more than they had bargained for.  Unfortunately, some are either in agreement with him, or still not able to imagine what he really has planned.

Not only is there talk about being able to get the bill signed into law by the President without even going to a Senate vote again, but also adding everything possible that would not be able to be passed separately.  Government takeover of the student loan program, gun control, abortion policy, and any environmental policy are all being rumored to be added to the bill.  Actually public funding of abortions is already in the bill and they can't take it out without risking the failure of the bill when it is presented to the Senate again.  So it will stay in and be taken out in future modifications, they promise!!  And of course, our first response is that all these stories are just nut-job conspiracy theories.  No president or congressman, or senator would be so stupid.  They would never get re-elected!  That's the point, they are suicidal politicians, they don't care about being re-elected.  One of my senators, Michael Bennett, said as much on one of the Sunday morning political talk shows.  He said that even if it meant not being re-elected, he would work to pass the current health care takeover.  He would do the right thing for his constituents!  Just to show how well our representatives listen:  I did something I had never done before, I wrote to Mr. Bennett protesting his position.  Now I get weekly updates by e-mail telling me how hard he is working to pass this legislation for me!

Americans no longer trust their imaginations.  We just can't believe that our elected leaders could be doing this.  In this case, there really are wolverines in the closet!  

Some More Politics and the Overall Degeneration of Society as We Know It

Like a lot of Americans, I knew absolutely nothing about Barak Obama before the democratic primaries just over a year ago.  And very little about him on the day he was elected.  As Hillary Clinton said, his qualifications and achievements were limited to a "pretty speech" at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.  So how did we make him President with so little (or no)knowledge of his views and beliefs?  


I got a very interesting glimpse of the way the average, or quite possibly above average, American gathers information about politics and politicians.  I was in a hardware store and overheard the young - middle 20's - cashier telling his co-workers about the unfair criticism of President Obama's delayed response to the Christmas day attempt by a terrorist to blow up an airliner with an underwear bomb (brief bomb?, probably not, boxers are less constricting!).  He said that Jon Stewart said that the President's critics weren't being consistent.  Stewart said that President Obama spoke to the nation only 10 days after the attempt.  Mr. Bush (it's never President, or former President Bush, always Mr.) waited two weeks to say anything about the 9-11 attacks!  I was pretty sure that President Bush spoke on the evening of the attacks in a national telecast, but I am over 40, 45 now, so my memory might be foggy at best.  So I did a very un-old fogey type thing and did a search on Youtube for President Bush 9-11 speech.  And guess what?  My foggy memory wasn't as foggy as I feared!  


One week later when I was in the store again, the same young man (I have spoken to him a lot and he's very intelligent and friendly, which in itself makes this story scarier), was working.  I mentioned what I had overheard the week before and he repeated his concern about the unfair treatment of the President.  I asked him to do the same Youtube search I had done and said he would get videos of President Bush's great speech that begins "TODAY America came under attack."  Some creative, obviously young, techie types have created some very moving videos with President Bush's speech over photographs of the World Trade Center towers collapsing, spliced in with the day's news reports and music by REM and Enya.  He was very polite and said he'd look it up.


I saw him again a couple of days later and he said he had seen the videos and that obviously Jon Stewart was wrong (I'd say LYING).  Being well on my way to becoming a grumpy old man, I recommended that in the future, he should get his facts from more than one source, and the Comedy Channel is probably not the best place to start!  In complete contradiction to the stereotype, he agreed.  Maybe there's hope for us after all.

Patriots

I've always enjoyed American history.  I never have been able to get interested in world history too much.  I guess I just don't have the imagination to be able to identify with Charlemagne, the Russian czars, or King Louis I-XXXIV, or whatever.  But I love American history.  I am currently reading A Patriot's History of the United States. Unlike a lot of history books, it is very readable. And very informative.  Just a trivia note, I learned today where Cajun originated.  At the beginning of King George's War in 1755, a group of colonists took it upon themselves to take Acadia (Nova Scotia) from the French settlers.  At the end of the war, the British gave much of the conquered territories back to the French, but kept Acadia.  They were concerned about having French loyalists in their Nova Scotia, so they deported them.  A group of the deportees relocated in current Louisiana and were called Cajuns, a slurred version of Acadians.  That also explains the presence of their French influenced dialect.  Impress your friends at the bar with that little bit of trivia.  

One side note, I am reading this book on the Kindle Reader for PC.  It seems that as I am getting older more mature, those evil publishers are printing books with smaller type.  With the free Kindle Reader,I can download Kindle books to my laptop and read them in a slightly larger font.  I can also read in a poorly lit room (i.e. any room in our built in the 40's house).  Another advantage is that the Kindle version is generally cheaper than the hardback and I get it within seconds of ordering it.  There are also a lot of free books available for the Kindle.  The only downside is the fact that they aren't books.  As a former bookstore owner, I really like the smell, feel, and look of a book.  So I will probably end up buying hard copies of this one and a couple of others I have read on the Kindle.