A New Disease

I have noticed a new disease.  I might even have it. My hope is that it is not terminal. I'm pretty sure it isn't terminal.

I-padiditis, not to be confused with androidium tablitus, is characterized by uncontrollable urges to reach for the I-pad in any one of multiple scenarios. The disease is manifest in at least three states. One state is the insatiable desire to check e-mail. A second state is obsession with digital games, while the third state has the afflicted with reading of e-books. A more severe case of I-padiditis consists of frequent internet purchases. A more advanced case, but less sever than frequent purchases is reliance on Skype and Facetime. Texting seems to be present in most forms of I-padiditis, whether through Facebook or some other form of instant messaging.

As previously mentioned, I-padiditis should not be confused with androidium tablitus. Both ailments are very similar in the way they present themselves in the patient. Close inspection of the disease carrier should properly differentiate between the two. However, it is not truly necessary to distinguish between the two as they manifest in the same way and there appears to be no known cure for either disease short of inpatient treatment. To date, no cure has been verified.

Withdrawal symptoms are severe and could be life-threatening; not for the patient, but for anybody who may be near the patient. Symptoms include nervousness, fidgetyness, sleeplessness, restlessness, constant reaching for the device, and habitual recharging.

PC Police vs. Policing

In an effort to avoid being racially insensitive and ward off claims of racial profiling, a major Midwestern university campus police department has decided to no longer identify crime suspects by color. I guess this means that instead of narrowing down a suspect list that everybody will now necessarily become suspect in crimes.

As the PC police take over it is easy to see where this will go. After eliminating  identifying characteristics by race we will next move to gender. Gender equality is important after all. Then we will no longer identify crime suspects by body build. No longer will police be able to identify a genderless, colorless person by height or weight. Let us not leave out disabilities. Glasses? Nope. Walk with a limp? Nope. Did the suspect cough or sneeze? Can't ask that question as it violates HIPAA laws. What kind of car did the suspect drive? Can't ask that question either as it reveals economic status. Eye color? No. That might reveal something about a person's  ancestors, thus nation of origin and ethnicity. Hair color and texture pose the same problem as eye color.  Jewelry? Can't ask as the suspect may have been wearing a cross or Star of David. Clothing? Don't ask as that may also reveal something about a person's religion. Heaven forbid should we start looking for somebody in the Muslim or Jewish communities.

I can see it now. The dispatcher tells officers to be on the lookout (we call it a BOLO) for a suspect in an unspecified crime that took place at an undisclosed location. (Since criminals tend to commit crimes close to home we don't want to single out neighborhoods as perhaps being undesirable.) Press briefings will go something like this: "A person was the victim of a crime. We had a second, third, and fourth crime yesterday. People reported that they too were victims. There being no questions, this ends our press briefing. You can come back tomorrow for further information or you can just make up your own police blotter reports."

What next?

Be Calm and Take a Deep Breath

The Huff Post POLITICS article began with the following statement.  “WASHINGTON -- Gene Alday, a Republican member of the Mississippi state legislature, apologized last week for telling a reporter that all the African-Americans in his hometown of Walls, Mississippi, are unemployed and on food stamps.” 

I’m not really sure what the author was trying to say in this piece.  Maybe he was taking a potshot at a Republican state legislator from the South and trying to make him look bigoted.  Who knows?  Maybe he is.  Maybe he isn’t.  I would prefer to err on the side of caution and believe that he isn’t. Perhaps the author was congratulating the legislator for acknowledging a terrible fact.  I rather doubt it.  The author took a second shot over somebody’s bow though by saying that those big bad Republicans “are conducting a review of nutrition assistance with an eye toward figuring out how to nudge more people into the workforce” and how those big bad Republicans have “lamented that (there is) a growing share of recipients (who) are able-bodied adults without children”.  The author goes on to say that the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (whoever they are) estimates that one million people “will be kicked off the rolls by next year as states reimpose time limits on childless, non-disabled adults”.

You had to read half way through the article to discover that more African Americans in Alday’s legislative district do indeed receive more assistance than his white constituents.  But, before you got there you learned that the main thrust of the article was that nationally there is a higher percentage of white recipients than black recipients on government assistance.  The author relied on US Department of Agriculture data on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.  I found it interesting that the author took national figures and tried to apply them on a micro-stage.  It doesn’t always work that way.  The author’s rationale is like saying that since most Americans are white that everybody who lives in Paducah, Kentucky is white.  I’d call it pretty poor journalism.  Still, the author makes a pretty convincing argument about how whites take up a larger share of the SNAP funds than blacks.

According to the author’s article, there were 47 million Americans receiving SNAP assistance each month in 2013.  I would liked to have seen exact numbers, but I can roll with 47 million.  Of those 47 million Americans, 40.2% of the recipients were white, 25.7% were black, 10.3% were Hispanic, 2.1% were Asian, and 1.2% were (and still presumably are) Native American.  This amounts to about 1.6 times as many whites receiving SNAP assistance than blacks.  That’s a ballpark figure.  I suspect a skilled mathematician who is really interested in getting a precise figure could take it out three or four decimal points.  O.K., so point made.  On the face of things, whites receive more assistance than blacks.  Agreed.  In fact, what these numbers say is that there are 19 million whites and only 12 million blacks receiving SNAP assistance.  This is where you hear claims of white privilege.

The author included a few bar graphs to help impress us with the research that went into the article.  One bar graph showed the percent of SNAP recipients who are children, disabled, and elderly adults and another one show the percentage of SNAP recipients who had earned income, Social Security, SSI, other forms of assistance, and no income.  Unfortunately, the author never correlated that data with his ethnicity data.  In all, the article was a pretty good presentation for a fifth or sixth grade social science project.  But, it left me asking more questions than it answered, chief among those was the motivation for such a report.  However, the author’s motivation is far overshadowed by more pertinent questions that need addressed had the author taken another 20 minutes and did additional research.

I went to the United States Census Bureau (http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html) for a little help in obtaining the estimated 2013 United States population.  Of the approximately 316.5 million US population, 77.7% are white, 13.2% are black, 17.1% are Hispanic, 5.3% are Asian, and 1.2% are Native American. (I’ll put this all in a nice little table for you near the bottom of my comments.)  Now, if all things were equal, you would expect to see 78% of the SNAP assistance going to whites, 13% to blacks, 17% to Hispanics, 5% to Asians, and 1% to Native Americans.  But, we don’t.  Instead, this little table is what we see.

	Whites	Blacks	Hispanic	Asian	Native Am
% of US Population	77.7	13.2	17.1	5.3	1.2
% of SNAP Use	40.2	25.7	13.3	2.1	1.2

Do you see the problem here?  Though whites take up 40.2% of the SNAP dollars, they make up 77.7% of the total US population.  Meanwhile, blacks make up only 13.2% of the US population but take up 25.7% of the SNAP dollars.  So, maybe it is black privilege?

There is a second way to look at the problem, which I believe is more telling than the mere comparisons of general and SNAP populations.

While whites take up 40.2% of the SNAP funding, whites on SNAP account for only 7.7% of the white US population.  Blacks, on the other hand who take up 25.7% of SNAP funding, constitute 28.9% of the total black US population.  Do you understand the significance here?  While 7.7% of whites receive SNAP assistance, 28.9% of blacks receive SNAP assistance.  Maybe it really is black privilege.  No.

But, here’s the real shocker.  You’ll find it at the far right side of the table below.  Native Americans account for 1.2% of the US population and 1.2% of SNAP funds go to Native Americans.  That sounds nice and equitable until you keep working out the math.  You see, that 1.2% of SNAP assistance going to Native Americans amounts to 564,000 individuals.  That is 14.85% of the Native American population.  Go figure.  Let those numbers and percents sink in. Maybe we should call it Native American Disadvantage. And, instead of pointing fingers at those big bad Republicans maybe it would be good for all of us to be calm and take a deep breath and then go beyond fifth and sixth grade social science projects and determine what the real data are and what they mean.  And then do something about it.

Total US Population	White Population	Black Population	Hispanic Population	Asian Population	Native American Population
316,497,531	245,918,581.59	41,777,674.09	54,121,077.80	16,774,369.14	3,797,970.37	Total Population
	77.70%	13.20%	17.10%	5.30%	1.20%	% of Total Population
	40.20%	25.70%	10.30%	2.10%	1.20%	% Receiving Assistance
47,000,000	18,894,000.00	12,079,000.00	4,841,000.00	987,000.00	564,000.00	Individuals/Assistance
	7.68%	28.91%	8.94%	5.88%	14.85%	% of Race Population

Hope for Humanity

Hope for Humanity

Perhaps there is still hope for humanity.

I should have known from the outset that things were not going to go well. We planned our trip to Albuquerque at one of the worst possible times of the year. February. After several searches for flights to Albuquerque we finally found reasonably priced tickets out of Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Since it was going to be a 6:00 a.m. flight we decided to spend the night before in a motel in Scranton. I went online and made reservations. When the confirmation came I saw that the date was set for November. How could I have missed this?

I called the motel and the nice clerk made the necessary changes. We were good to go. Oh, but if only it wasn't February in the great northeast!

On the morning of the day we were to leave for Scranton I received a text message from the airlines that our flight had been cancelled due to weather conditions. We pondered our plight and decided that if we could change our departure out of Harrisburg that we could still get to Albuquerque.  Kathy at Delta was so kind and helpful. I could pull words straight from the Boy Scout Law to describe her. Helpful. Friendly. Courteous.  Kind. Cheerful. It took her a little time but she had us booked on flights that would get us to Albuquerque at our originally scheduled arrival time.

The trip to Harrisburg was not as treacherous as I had anticipated. However, I received another text message that our flight from Harrisburg had been delayed by three hours. There would be no possible way we would make our connection in Atlanta to Albuquerque.

While we dealt with this dilemma we became acquainted with a nice young man (I say young because he was younger than me) who was dealt the same blow that we had been given, only he was trying to get to Seattle. We commiserated together and shared ideas as to how we could make our ways to our destinations. We talked several times in Harrisburg and Atlanta.

By the time we left Harrisburg, Delta had rebooked us on flights from Atlanta to Salt Lake to Albuquerque. Once again, making these connections seemed impossible because of the 20 minute layover in Atlanta. Enter Rachelle from Delta.  In a matter of minutes she put us on a direct flight to Albuquerque. Yes, it gave us a late arrival, but we would not be running in the Atlanta airport to a flight that would leave without. Even if we could have made the flight, who wants to spend all that time and those miles on the plane? And every additional layover increases the risk of problems.

While waiting for our Albuquerque flight Susan began talking to a woman seated next to her. She was returning home to New Mexico. As the conversation evolved Susan revealed that she was born and raised in Los Alamos and that I had retired from the police department there. The woman's face lit up as Susan explained our history in Los Alamos and she asked if I might remember her relative Wayne Byers who had also been a police officer in Los Alamos. "Of course, I do!" Susan gave the woman my name and thus the connection would be complete when she returns home.

Most of our luggage made it to Albuquerque. The lady at the Delta baggage claim area was so helpful. She tracked down the lost bag in seconds and sent us away with a little kit of toiletries (and a T-shirt) and assurances that the bag would be delivered to the motel the next day. It was.

Most rental car agents are pushy, but Kyle at the Hertz counter was kind, considerate, and very accommodating. He was very understanding of our tired situation, and the man staffing the check-in process at the La Quinta graciously accepted my request to keep the suitcase for us when it arrived the next day. When I walked into the motel lobby late the next night he recognized me right away and offered to carry the bag to our car. I assured him that I would be able to handle it

I realized on my trip that I had forgotten my camera battery and charger, a big mistake for me. I checked online and saw that I could buy a battery and charger for my camera for about $30.00 at Walmart. I went to the small Walmart in Los Lunas and found every battery and charger that Canon makes except for mine. I began looking at cameras for a temporary fix to my problem when Carolyn, the store sales associate in electronics offered to sell me a display model camera for $25.00. It was small enough to fit inside my shirt pocket, but powerful enough to take more than adequate snapshots. I made the purchase on the spot. Later when I tried to connect the USB cable to the camera I discovered that the wrong cable had been placed with the camera. I returned to Walmart and Carolyn spotted me before I could approach her. I explained the situation and she quickly found a GoPro device that connected to multiple size ports. It was priced at $15.00, but she simply gave it to me with the approval of her supervisor.

Lots of things went wrong on our way to Albuquerque, but lots of people went out of their way to make things right. In an era of public relations and customer service nightmares, five companies along with these special employees get an A+ this time. Thank you Delta Airlines, Hertz, Choice Hotels, La Quinta, and Walmart for having staff who were effective, efficient, and willing to treat this customer with concern and dignity. I will remember these acts of kindness when I next travel, especially in the winter.

My high school friend Linda Steep Benson asked me about our trip I explained all that happened along with all the helpful people we met along the way.  She commented back to me that it was nice that I was able to be philosophical about everything. These people made it easy. Yeah, there is still hope for humanity.

Reasonable Calm Respectful Discussion

I posed a question today on Facebook, prefaced with a comment and observation.  This is what I said.

“Perhaps I have too much time on my hands. I don’t know. But, the question I find repeating itself in my mind this morning is this. Why is it that we must spend so much time, energy, and angst over our differences? Why can’t we focus on those things we share in common and build on those together? The focus on our differences is driving such a wedge in the fabric of our nation that I fear that it will again be torn apart and I’m not certain that any amount of mending will make it better.”

I was quite serious with my questions and about my observations.

We used to be a melting pot of cultures, ideas, and values.  Oh, yes, to be sure there were exceptions and exclusions, but we’ve come such a long way.  Two ethnic groups have struggled for such a long, long time to fit into this melting pot but have met with such little success.  Blacks and Native American Indians have struggled forever to make it onto that so-called level playing field.  While blacks are making progress at breaking through that brick wall to equality, those who claim this American continent as their ancestral home have lagged far, far behind.  But, I’m not totally convinced that they want to be in the melting pot.  I’m not sure that they want to give up their identity and frankly, I’m not sure that I can blame them.  I believe they have an inherent right to maintain their identity. 

As a side note, Native Americans on average have three times the suicide rate as that of the rest of the American population.  On some reservations the suicide rate is ten times the national average.  According to the PEW Research Center, 26% of Native Americans live in poverty while less than half that number of whites live in poverty.  PEW also reports that 11% of Native Americans and Alaskan Natives drop out of high school before graduation compared to 5% of whites (Hispanics have a 13% dropout rate), and 17% of Native Americans and Alaskan Natives have bachelor degrees compared to 33% of whites with that four-year degree (Asians have a startling 60% bachelor degree attainment).  The Bureau of Justice Statistics show that victimization rates for simple assault, aggravated assault, rape, and robbery are double that of the rest of the general population.  One in 30 Native American children under the age of 14 is victim of abuse, which is double that of the rest of the general population of the United States (Earle, K. and Cross, A. [2001]. Child Abuse and Neglect Among Native American/Alaska Native Children: An Analysis of Existing Data. National Indian Child Welfare Association and Casey Family Programs).  I could go on and explain rates of domestic violence in Native American homes (higher), alcohol and other drug abuse rates (higher), and so forth, but you get the picture and this really isn’t the focus of my discussion here.

The point is that we have come a long way toward making this melting pot work and we seem to have stopped that forward progress.  I’m tempted to identify a period in our history when we moved away from the concept of our nation being a soup pot instead of salad bowl as the turning point.  I also think it happened around the time we started talking in terms of political correctness and gender neutrality.

It is no wonder that we cannot seem to attain consensus in the international arena because we can’t seem to find any here at home.  Just look around.  Vegetarians point a judgmental finger at meat-eaters, the LGBT community cries discrimination while those whose moral convictions want to hold onto traditional definitions of marriage.  Pro-choice and pro-life proponents shout each other down. Environmental extremists chain themselves to trees so loggers can’t do their jobs or they spike trees so that when logs go to lumber mills workers are impaled with the spikes that are thrown by the saw blades.  Half of our population wants to impose a greater tax on those who already provide 70% of the nation’s revenues and despise those who were successful in business while the other half of our population stands guard around business and industry.  Many in our country want to send illegal immigrants or undocumented workers or whatever they are called back to the hell holes they came from and then seal the borders air-tight while others want to open the doors to anybody and everybody and give carte blanche amnesty and citizenship to those who came in through the back door.  Then the anti-gun lobby is at odds with the Second Amendment Rights advocates.  Please don’t get me started on racial tensions which are worse now than at any time that I can recall.

It seems to me that as sophisticated as we are and as advanced we are in our knowledge and ability to acquire information that somewhere in the mix there is room for reasonable, calm, respectful, discussion.  Somewhere among all the data we possess are answers.  Surely we have moved to a place in this Twenty-first Century where we can talk in terms of win-win for all those with invested interests.

Perhaps there are issues that everybody can agree upon that can be addressed first before the more difficult challenges are tackled.  Perhaps once we learn how to have productive dialogues with no hidden agendas we could move forward.  This, of course, requires a great deal of trust, meaning that all those who sit at the discussion table must be trustworthy.

Perhaps once we learn how to solve our domestic problems we could move into the international arena.

Perhaps I’m a dreamer.  Perhaps I have too much time on my hands.

Teaching Teenagers

Teaching Teenagers

If you have to ask how to connect with teens today, it’s too late.  You aren’t going to learn how to do it.  At least you won’t learn how to do it in this lifetime.

I’ve decided that being able to have some sort of connection with youth is at the same time a blessing and a curse.  I don’t know which is greater, the curse or the blessing.  At times I truly wonder.

The sweet young mother of a teenager, pre-teen, and younger children came up to me today after church and said that her child and others were so excited that I taught her Sunday school class today.  (I subbed for my wife who is visiting a daughter in Texas.)  That would have been her pre-teen that I taught.  I have that mother’s teenage son in an early morning seminary (religion) class for high school students five days a week.  Apparently her son rats me out around the dinner table, and for that reason his siblings cannot wait until they are in my early morning class as well.  Other moms at church tell my wife and me that we cannot move until after their children have had all four years of this early morning class with me and their Sunday lessons with my wife.

I’ve come to a handful of conclusions about teaching teenagers.  Let me share those conclusions with you.

1. You can’t.  You cannot teach a teenager anything.  Even if you can get a teen’s attention long enough to make an important point or teach a valuable principle, it will be gone before the end of a class or any other setting that you may be in.
2. Parents want YOU to teach their children at 6:00 a.m. each day during the school year because THEY would rather not get up at 5:00 a.m. each day to teach teenagers who cannot be taught anything anyway.  Of course, there are other reasons, like getting a spouse and other children up and out the door and then maybe hitting the door themselves.
3. Parents are grateful for those who teach Sunday lessons to their children.  That gives parents at least an hour on Sunday when they do not have to wrestle with at least one child.
4. A lesson with food will hold a teenager’s attention better than a lesson by itself.
5. A lesson with a joke included will guarantee that teenage students will at least learn one thing during the time that you are standing in front of them babbling off relevant meaningful life lessons.
6. Teens are still children at heart.  If you share a personal story they will remember that story, especially if it is funny or if you got hurt.  Share an account from somebody else’s life and they will forget it before they hit the door at the end of class.  Teach an important lesson?  Forget it!
7. The best lesson you can teach a teenager is that she or he is loved and that you happen to be the one that loves him or her.  Showing that love works better than telling them.  Nothing else really matters.
8. If you have to ask how to connect with teens today, it’s too late.  You aren’t going to learn how to do it.  At least you won’t learn how to do it in this lifetime.  I’m still trying and I am convinced that I am a hopeless case.

Fatherhood

Fatherhood

            I’ve been asked to address the topic of fatherhood on at least two previous occasions.  Perhaps being the father of five children is supposed to qualify me for this noble responsibility.  Unfortunately, simply being the father of five children does not qualify one to speak with authority on any topic.  Everybody knows of the wide range of goodness in fathers.  Perhaps you even know people at both ends of the spectrum.  There are fathers who seem to be successful, whatever that is, and others who would not merit the title of father to a piranha.  Most of us, however, seem to fall someplace between the two ends.  I’d like to think we’re all somewhere in this large bell curve of fatherhood: not great and not terrible, just located within one standard deviation of the mean.  Of course, you would like to think the curve is skewed towards greatness, but experience suggests otherwise.

            One has to study Webster at length to get a reasonable definition of father or fatherhood.  After all, the word father is preceded by fathead in the dictionary.  This is not a good sign.  The word dad does not paint a better picture.  It is preceded by dacus, a type of fruit fly.  Yet, somehow, there has to be more to father than being a man who has begotten a child.  It doesn’t take a world of genius to figure out how to father a child.  Of course, it doesn’t take a world of genius to figure out how to be a father either.  It takes heart.

            Bringing human life into the world is only the beginning.  The father who presides in the home takes responsibility for the outcome of his family.  He not only manages for shelter, clothing, food, and physical comforts for his children, but he provides compassion, counsel, direction, comfort, and the means for his family members to develop to their full potential.  Rearing, teaching, guiding, blessing, providing for, and loving our children are the acts that make a man a father.  Among the most important things that we can teach our children are what an honorable parent is, for some day, they will be parents, and will have passed on to them the same responsibilities that we have as parents.

            Another fundamental role of father is that of protector, not only against physical harm, but against untruth and error.  At other times it means discipline.  In fact, the word discipline has as its root the word disciple, meaning follower.  There are many styles of discipline, but there is a bright line between discipline and abuse.  The man who physically, sexually, or emotionally abuses a child is not fit for the responsibility of fatherhood.

            Hopefully there are not many of these fathers around.  As fathers though, perhaps we should all stand back and ask ourselves if we are abusing our children out of neglect.  In other words, we should be asking if we are providing growing opportunities and life experiences, no matter how small or seemingly unimportant to us, to our children.  Do we share with them the most important commodities we have with them: our time and ourselves?