Month: January 2011

Stupid is as Stupid does

I’m probably singing to the choir, but I’m going to say — flat out — Canada is extraordinary.  It’s unique.  It’s exceptional.  Our country sits on the pinnacle of what nations have been trying to achieve ever since Hammurabi went to Law School.  We’ve got so much stuff we don’t even know what to do with half of it.  We’ve got stuff we just look at.  We throw away more stuff than a lot of other countries have to begin with.  And we’re stinkin’ rich, too — not just Bill Gates rich, either.  We could buy Gates and make him tapdance at birthday parties if we wanted to.  When you’re born in Canada, you’re already worth $40,000 — and that’s just for showing up.  Several years ago, Jean Chretien’s government lost (LOST!) a billion dollars, and nobody cared.  Jean just told Parliament he’d look around for it.  He never did find it, but still — nobody cared.   Canadians are so outrageously wealthy we don’t even take our money seriously.  We call it “the Loonie,” for Christ sake.

So, you’re probably wondering, why, if we have all this stuff and we’re so rich, how come we have poor people and homeless people and bad roads and huge taxes and all the other crap we have to put up with every day?  Simple answer?  We’re stupid.  And we’re not just “I lost my keys on the bus” stupid, either; we’re “Other countries are laughing at us” stupid.  If Dumb-Ass were an Olympic event, Canada would literally own the podium.  We’ve had so much money for so long that we don’t even bother keeping track of it, anymore.  For example, we just gave over $9,000.00 to a convicted cop-killer because the prison guards violated his civil rights by making him stand during roll call.  And do you know that Canada owns a huge apartment in Paris?  If you’re an artist who knows the right people, you can go live there — for nothing — and the Canadian taxpayer will pick up the tab.  These are just two teeny examples.  There are tons more because — believe it or not — we actually pay people hundreds of thousands of dollars every year to go to work and figure out ways to give our money away.  And here’s the knee to the groin: they are probably the most efficient government department we have because we give away (GIVE AWAY!) hundreds of millions of dollars every year.  Pretty stupid, huh?  Maybe, but merely giving our money away is not the stupidest thing Canadians do – not by a long shot. 

In all of human history, since the very first person walked on two legs, Canada is the only country ever, which actually gives money to people who want to destroy it.  Every year, all of us proud Canadians, who wave the flag, sing the song and kinda like the country we live in, give a couple of million dollars in political subsidies to the Bloc Quebecois, whose avowed purpose on earth is to destroy Canada.  Think about it.  Now imagine the conversation between two Afghanis in Kandahar when a Canadian soldier walks by.

“Who’s that guy?”
“He’s a Canadian.”
“What he like?”
“He’s a nice guy, but he’s stupid.”
“I thought the Americans were stupid?”
“Not as stupid as this guy.  He’s so stupid, while he’s away, he’s paying people to wreck his country.”
“What?  Doesn’t he like his country?”
“No, he loves it.  You should hear him talk about it.  He wishes he was there, right now.”
“Is there something wrong with his country?”
“Nope, not a thing.  It’s a great place.  In fact, people from all over the world are clamoring to get in.”
“Wow!  That is stupid.”
“Told ya.”

Variations on this conversation are going on all over the world.  The major difference is the Afghanis are at least polite enough not to pee their pants laughing.  Just imagine what guys like Berlusconi are saying about us.  It’s no wonder nobody takes Canada seriously anymore.  Quite frankly, how could they?  Giving tax money to the Bloc Quebecois is like Louis XVI of France saying to Robespierre, “Look, Maximilien! I know you’re broke but I’m going to give you a couple of million francs every year so, some day, you can start the French Revolution and eventually cut off my head.”  What Cloud Cuckcooland have we fallen into?

And to put some icing on the Stupid Cake, there has never been a major protest against this lunacy — anywhere — from sea to shining sea.  In fact, there are people in this country who defend political subsidies because they say they’re “Good for democracy.”  I have no idea how that works.  From my point of view, people who want to destroy the close to 200 years of hard work it took to get us all this cool stuff aren’t good for very much, and paying them to do it is just – well – stupid. 

But — politics aside — let’s just look at the money.  Taxpayers pay $27 million in political subsidies every year.  That’s chump change to the Canadian government.  However, if we were to take all that money and buy chicken, we could give a 10-piece bucket to over 10,000 homeless people every day, forever – for all eternity.  And I imagine with an order that big, KFC would throw in the Pepsi.  So, who needs the money more: Gilles Duceppe or that kid digging in your dumpster?  Think about it.

Tiger Mom and the World’s Greatest Dad

Before you read another word, you must understand one fact: I am the World’s Greatest Dad.  I got to be the World’s Greatest Dad because I have a huge advantage over all the other dads in the world – I don’t have any kids.  Remember this.  It’s extremely important.  Anyway, because I don’t have any kids, I don’t read a lot of books on parenting.  It would be like a guy with no arms reading books about finger painting (get over the imagery; it’s true.)  However, I was intrigued by the firestorm generated by Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and decided to give it a lash.  Wow!  All kinds of things are going on here: first of all, for a best seller, it isn’t a very good read.  Secondly, it’s been wildly misinterpreted.  Thirdly, Chua is dead wrong, and finally, I agree with most of what she says.

In the book, Chua basically comes out of the closet and says, before God and everybody, Western (read “North American”) ideas about child raising are stupid, and Chinese (read “immigrant”) methods are far superior.  The majority of the book is actually about Chua, and most of the rest of it is about music lessons.  Those parts are boring.  However, when she talks about raising her daughters, it’s absolutely fascinating.  Chua says that kids need direction, they need structure and they need clearly-defined goals.  She goes on to say that, in order for children to become well-adjusted, successful adults, they need to be taught to pursue excellence.  She uses music and academic achievement as the models.  Then, (here’s the best part) she says parents are not doing their job unless they demand absolute excellence from their children and (it just gets better and better) that by rigidly imposing discipline on them, parents naturally give their kids the gift of self-discipline, which is essential to personal success.  Heady stuff!

Legions of Blogging Moms read the reviews of Chua’s book and went into apoplectic shock.  When they got up off the floor, they ran to their own children, did a group hug, recited six I-love-yous, and assured them, in a comforting, nurturing way, that the bad lady was merely challenged and could not hurt them because mommy was there.  Then, they went back to their computers to put a stop to this blasphemy.  Momma Bear was pissed, but Amy Chua was unrepentant and pointed to her own daughters to prove her argument.  Blogging Moms would have pointed to theirs but they were busy playing video games at the time.  (You can kinda see where I’m going on this can’t you?)  I don’t agree with Ms. Chua’s methods and for the most part I think somebody should have ratted her out to Child Services years ago.  But I can’t argue with her assessment.

Children are ignorant savages.  If you don’t believe me, take a Google on Lord of the Flies.  They are conceited little monsters who think the world runs on cute.  In order for them to survive outside the family home, they need parents to protect them, guide them and teach them all the junk they’re going to need to know when they hit 18 and nobody loves them unconditionally anymore.  Like it or don’t, there are some pretty serious predators out there who feast on young adults.  Unfortunately, most parents see themselves as mere cheerleaders, dedicated to ego-building in their sons and daughters.  They believe that self-esteem is the single most important thing they can give their kids; it’s sort of like The Force in Star Wars.  Yoda tells Skywalker that if he just believes, he can levitate rocks and such.  I don’t know how many times I’ve heard parents say, “If you believe in yourself, you can do anything.”  That’s crap!  You can believe in yourself all you want, but without the basic tools of life, you are doomed to failure.  Faith does not move mountains; hard work and self-discipline do.

The problem is that most people don’t see the simple connection between material success and this self-actualization hocus pocus everybody talks about.  Again, I don’t know how many times I’ve heard parents say, “I don’t care what my kids do, as long as they’re happy.”  Once again, this is crap!  I’ve been poor and happy, and I’ve been rich and happy; take a wild guess which one I prefer.  The simple fact is that young adults without marketable skills (or the ability to acquire them) don’t have the option of realizing their true potential and pursuing happiness.   They’re stuck with doing whatever they can — just to survive.  And self esteem is not an asset in this situation; it’s a liability.  In the real world, there’s a huge slap waiting for every kid who doesn’t understand that praise and rewards are not automatic — even when they’re deserved.  If that isn’t a nuclear kick in the ego for young people just starting out, I don’t know what is.  

Parents are not doing their children any favours by shielding them from our nasty little world.  They need to prepare them for it and give them the skills they need to survive.  They should demand their kids strive for excellence and force them into the habits that increase their chances of success.  Amy Chua may not be mother of the year, and there may be madness in her methods, but as the World’s Greatest Dad, I can see her point.

I Had a Friend in Arizona

When I was a young man, I lived in Arizona.  I had a friend who worked for Amtrak.  You can take the train from LA to New Orleans if you want to, but it’s a bum-numb-er, and I wouldn’t advise it.  My friend worked on the route from Tucson to El Paso.  It’s an interesting part of the world except in the summer when nothing moves in the heat – not even the sun.  It’s Chiricahua land — you know them as Apaches — but there are no Chiricahua there anymore because they were all taken to The San Carlos, to die.  This was long before a couple of Republicans named Earp shot it out with Ike and Billy Clanton one afternoon in 1881.  Amtrak basically follows the old railway line that went through Benson into Cochise County and across the southern end of the Dragoon Mountains to New Mexico.   This was originally the route of the even older Butterfield Stage which, from 1857 to 1861, went from Tucson to Franklin (what would become El Paso.)  What does all this have to do with anything?  Not much.  I just wrote it to smart-off about how much I know about Arizona.  The real story is my friend who worked for Amtrak.

In the old days, Amtrak was a despicable railroad.  They were never on time, the food was terrible, they lost reservations, lost luggage and once they lost a couple of passengers who stepped off the train during a breakdown and were left, out in the desert.  Amtrak was so bad they even employed people like my friend who honestly was never prepared for steady employment.  He had wonderful stories about all the foul-ups at Amtrak; unfortunately, most of them were connected to him.  Finally, unable to find anything Daniel (not his real name) was even remotely competent at, Amtrak stuck him in the Information Desk.  His only job was to point people in the right direction, tell them where the bathrooms were, and adjust the clock that gave the times for arrivals and departures.  That’s where he ran into trouble.

Since Amtrak was constantly late in those days, lots of folks would come up to Daniel at the INFORMATION booth and ask if the train was on time.  Daniel would look up from his book, point to the clock that gave the time delay and say, “Nope.”  Sometimes, if his book was particularly good, he wouldn’t even point; he’d just purse his lips and shake his head and then go back to it – he loved Westerns.  Think about this for a second.  Ordinary people get impatient at traffic lights.  So normally, unless their names were Mr. and Mrs. Mohandas Gandhi, nearly everybody was looking for a little more information than that.  Invariably they would say something like, “What the hell’s going on?” or “What’s the deal?” or even a simple “Why?”  Daniel would swim up from his book again, look at them like they were idiots and say, “Does it matter?”  Obviously, from time to time, tempers would flare and after a couple of weeks of this, even Amtrak couldn’t take the mountain of complaints.  They threatened to fire Daniel.  I know for a fact he was supporting at least 2 girlfriends at the time and a large Louis L’Amour habit, so he needed the money desperately.  He promised Amtrak, on the souls of his grandchildren, that he would shape up and fly right.  And he did.

Daniel hit on a cunning plan.  He eventually realized that people wanted a reason the train was late — even though it didn’t actually matter. They wanted to understand.  They wanted some connection to the events.  They wanted something to blame.  They didn’t want to feel helpless.  And they wanted all these things simultaneously and unconsciously.  So what Daniel did was make things up.  Whenever the Sunset Limited (as it is now called) was late, in either direction, passengers in Tucson were told a variety of lies based on Western novels.  Daniel wasn’t stupid enough to tell them the train had been attacked by the Apaches or anything — although once he did say it hit a buffalo — but rockslides, grass fires, washed-out bridges and such like, were all fair game.  Amtrak was happy, the passengers were happy (relatively) and — most importantly — my friend Daniel kept his job.

What does this have to do with anything?  Not much.  It’s just that sometimes when events are out of control — in Tucson, or any other place for that matter — it’s good to have people like Daniel explaining things to us.  It’s good to have a reason why things went wrong.  It doesn’t have to be true.  We don’t need the truth; we just need to understand.   We need a simple, sensible explanation so we don’t feel helpless.

Tucson, Arizona is a nice town, and people don’t get killed there for no reason.  Maybe it’s wicked politics or an insane lack of gun controls.  Maybe it’s the culture of the Wild West or American culture itself, but somewhere there has to be a reason.  I’m sure my friend Daniel might be persuaded to come up with one for us.