Of first footsteps, and last; heroes and fathers

Neil Armstrong died today. A man who didn’t seek out the hero’s mantle, and surely didn’t cash it in as some have.

I grew up to be quite a space nut – and not just because my father, an engineer who worked for Boeing, actually got to work on the space program. It was just … the promise of the future and all that entailed.

I built a LEM (lunar lander) from a cutout cardboard sheet, more tape than paper when I was done. I built a Saturn 5 from a plastic kit of pieces, probably more glue than plastic when I was done (never was much for hand-eye coordination). In junior high, we did rockets, and my awfully painted lil red one must have flown, I suppose. I don’t remember it that much.

We — my father Paul, stepmother Jeannie, and two older brothers Pete and Rick (well he was Larry then) – moved to Cocoa, Fla., on the mainland near Cape Kennedy, in 1966. We left in 1968 for Kent, Wash., where my father – starting to show the signs of the bulbular palsy that would take his life within a few years – was to work for Boeing on the SST. Until Congress killed it.

Darn it.

Anyway, we’ve always been masters of timing. We moved to Cocoa after Gemini, left before Apollo — we were there for the deadly fire. (And we left as Disney World just began taking shape.) And my father worked, after the fire, on the guy-wire system that was going to get those astronauts out of the frickin capsule if another fire happened.

I used to read the Boeing newsletters he brought home avidly – though they were full of acronyms and jargon and I never quite understood them. I was already hit by the writing/journalism bug.

More than a billion folks watched man land on the moon, watched Armstrong’s first step.

I wasn’t one of them.

Alas, that’s the week my Boy Scout troop in Kent, Wash., decided to finish the 50-mile hike, from Stevens Pass to Sonoqualmie Pass, that was aborted the year earlier when one of them got lost. (That was before we moved there.)

I remember two things about that hike – one when we were roped together and a fat kid named Wally Schneider (fitting right?) didn’t follow the guy ahead of his footsteps in the still-present high-Cascades snow – so he started to slip down the hill (mountain?) — dragging us with him.

Then there was Mr. No Coordination, walking on a log with a pack on my back, and of course I fell in the water. I was dry – the backpack and sleeping bag got soaked.

Or so I recall.

So yeah, I wasn’t able to see man land on the moon — remember, there were no VCRs, much less DVRs then. (Though a few years later, a now-missing HS friend, Gene Tichy, and I would watch the moon landings, the Lunar Rover etc. – and he’d record them on a huge reel-to-reel video recorder.)

I know Neil Armstrong felt all the thousands of people who put him and Buzz Aldrin on the moon were just as much heroes as he was. (Decades later, I came up with the winning Progress edition theme for The Bulletin — ‘Everyday Heroes.’ We had trouble getting folks to agree to be called that. The best heroes are those so modest they don’t want or need the spotlight. They just do their jobs, or what needs to be done.)

Anyway, I don’t know if I ever told my dad he was a hero to me. He passed away in 1975 of a truly scary disease, bulbular palsy – as scary as the Alzheimer’s plague of today. He became very emotional, crying and … it was hard to see or take.

But today, as we remember a hero from the old school, a self-professed ‘white shoes pocket protector nerd’ who made history with a footstep that still sits on the moon’s airless plains, I have to offer a public salute to my father, Paul Lerten, one of the many folks who were part of a grand effort that almost seems impossible in retrospect, from today’s divisive, deep-in-red-ink Blame Society.

Both were heroes, and I’m sure my dad would have shunned the title just as Neil Armstrong did.

But both deserved it, richly, for what they did and what they stood for — doing right by family, doing a job to make something big and grand happen. But doing so without fanfare, just … because it needed to be done.

We miss that. We need more of that.

What a blog is – and isn’t

This is a blog. Blogs are usually one person’s posts, thoughts and comments, usually presented chronologically.
A blog is NOT an online forum system, or a commenting system on news articles. Somehow, many folks have gotten confused about just what a blog is — and isn’t.
Our daily paper has a front page story about how the city of Bend is going to try out an online forum. The word they picked for the “jump” header? Blog.
I guess we’re all looking for short, punchy shorthand to describe and categorize stuff. But right is right, and wrong is wrong, and bloggers know that much of what is called blogs these days are NOT a blog.
That said, I wish the city all the luck in the world in trying to get some useful info out of folks in a forum structure, and keep the rabble-rousers to background. It’s a challenge, as I know from our very lively comment system at KTVZ.COM and other experiences over the decades.
But people who post comments there WON’T be blogging, or posting blogs. Let’s try to call it what it is.

Moving out, moving in, moving up

OK, what a month June was. Last day ends with a boom and a storm-induced power outage – how fitting, and proud of our weekend anchor/producer Kim Tobin for managing to get dang fine 10 and 11 shows out when it took hours after the hour-long outage to get everything back up and running (a lot of technology at a TV station, folks, and BIG behind-the-scene upgrades are happening this year.)

Ah, upgrades — in the world of tech, they are such very mixed ‘blessings.’ Or as I’ve put it: “Two steps forward, 1 1/2 steps back, 3 steps sideways — and turn out the lights.”

Deb and I are almost through with our month-long move from SE to NE Bend. Why so long? Well, the place we lived in for 10 years was discharged in bankruptcy – by mistake – and nobody told us. The good part of that is, it allowed us, unlike many others, to ‘escape’ an underwater house with too-big 1st and 2nd mortgages and move to a bigger, newer and cheaper house. Two stories, with 16 steps between the first and second floors – did I mention that before? Hmm, maybe I did;-)

Anyway, that was the first of two big moves for me in the past month, bookends to the other “fun” highlight, a combo colonoscopy-endoscopy (which I refer to as the Golden Spike procedure – they meet in the middle, shake hands, give a speech, pose for photos. OK, not really;-)

But the second move – ah, what a roller-coaster ride. A year later than first planned, KTVZ.COM’s Website provider, Internet Broadcasting, moved us from version 1 to version 2 of their CMS (content management system), ibPublish. It’s completely different. And the trick was, we made the move while I fought as hard as possible to keep the front end – what everyone sees – exactly the same. (In large part because folks who make a habit of a Website hate for it to change so much they have to hunt for stuff. We’ve really tried to keep everything simple, logical and obvious — well, out front anyway;-)

But like every big move, in real life or the land of technology, you have to pick up everything you move (well, your movers do) and put it all in the new place, hopefully without breaking, losing or tripping over too much of the stuff, realizing you have too much stuff and vowing to de-hoard and de-clutter as you go. Mighty full, heavy trashcans, and recycling bins, indeed. (I dropped a 1,500-page dumb ol’ Windows XP how-too book. On my foot. Like I mentioned in a previous post, fortunately, didn’t break anything.)

OK, the analogy isn’t perfect, but for the past week-plus, let’s just say that the new version of our Web platform keeps locking up while I’m inside, so I have to force my way out again, and then I can’t often get in (log in) again. And the real fun is that IB as we call it — which partnered with a German company, CoreMedia, for this platform – inherited not one, but two tools to run this show. And they work almost completely differently (cut-paste vs. drag-drop for example) and don’t look anything alike and… it’s the kind of reason I’ve always been an automatic transmission, not a stickshift kind of guy. And a Windows, not Mac guy. Having both would be … disconcerting. So I have been grinding my gears a lot in the ‘backup’ version of the tool, when the better version kicks me out.

The likely outcome of any big move, of course, is that you find stuff you lost, lose stuff you had and hopefully don’t break much (stuff or your feet, for example) in the process.

Was quite glad most folks couldn’t tell the difference after the big switch (the changes in view are pretty subtle). And we happy to get a visit from IB’s great trainer, Fred Olson this week (he provided 2 mighty-fine lunches as well;-) — the IB folks have been putting up with, oh, 3,423 e-mails a day as I battle for logic, simplicity and the things that software should be all about, but rarely is. There are definite pluses to the new and ‘improved’ version — boy, does it post stories fast for example — but alas, like many computer upgrades, I keep trying to move things from the ‘new chore’ category to the ‘time-saving’ category because otherwise I’ll go bonkers.

Oh, and I also rewarded myself for surviving the Month of Change with my first new album purchase in months — the new Maroon 5, Overexposed. Yeah, they are. And the album is quite over-produced in places, too. But there’s enough fun among the somewhat reptitive techno-beats that it’s a worthy addition. (Wish they’d stuck ‘Moves Like Jagger’ on it. Yeah, I know, can play it on YouTube or buy it on iTunes, but I’m not an iPod earbud kinda guy. I like to fill a room with music whenever possible;-)

I also hope that now that we finally jumped to the new mothership for our Website, and are getting more newsroom folks trained, I can take my hands off the wheel once in a while (while always going in to polish the words – hey, edititis doesn’t go away overnight). Then maybe I can blat out my blog (and maybe one day a book? Who knows) about the Blame Society (tentiative subtitle: “How Losing the Middle Ground is Costing Us the Middle Class.”) Some other books have come out of late making the same point, but that doesn’t deter me. The extremes on both sides I deal with in our Web comments drive me to exasperation. But I have to hold my tongue there. Thankfully, the blogosophere makes it possible to be in a closely watched line of business like journalism and still be able to state an opinion. As long as one is careful about it.

So here’s to a happy 4th for all of you, and that with all that rain (sheesh) the Pilot Butte fireworks don’t set the butte on fire this time:-)

16 Steps to Glory (Amid a Move from Hades)

My wonderful wife Debbie and I are closing in on ‘done’ with our first move in a decade.

We were in our 40s the last time. Now we’re … not.

And for the first time in close to a quarter-century, we’re in a 2-story home.

“Are you sure?” I asked Deb, more than once.

“Yep — it’ll be good for us,” she said.

Uh-huh.

Actually, it’s gotten easier in just a few days than it was the first few times, when I counted the 16 steps the way I used to count out push-ups — very painfully, rarely successfully.

But my heart isn’t quite leaping out of my chest as it did at first.

I told my doctor I was moving to a house with its own built in 16-stair Stairmaster.

“Good — do 100 of those a day and you’ll be fine,” he said.

I neglected to ask if he meant 100 STAIRS, 100 trips up OR down the thing, or 100 round-trips.

Remind me not to ask him.

I also learned once again that the longer you are in one spot, the more … stuff accumulates. I’ll call it ‘crap,’ because that’s what I said under my breath with every too-heavy box of books I never read and never WILL read that got lugged up or down said 16 Stairs of Fun or into or out of a car.

We had 3 amazingly fit and burly guys do the truly heavy stuff. But they are fit, and we… well, the low point so far is when a 1,600-page (I kid you not) book on Office XP (what, 2-3 Offices ago?) decided to follow the laws of gravity and slip out of a plastic bag of Books I Hate and Will Recycle and fell… on my big toe.

Nope, didn’t break it, but it sure throbbed for a few.

So if you check my personal Facebook profile, you’ll find atop the page right now a prime example of why those 16 Stairs of Hateful Revenge on Old-Age Metabolism are worth it.

Until/unless the housing bubble blooms again (we’re in a half-built, at most, NE Bend neighborhood), we have a clear view of why so many of us put up with so much of what we’re not fond of here on the High Desert — a glorious view of the mountains and the sun setting behind them.

Almost makes up for every wheeze, ache and book-on-toe we’ve encountered (so far).

A bit closer to Heaven, you might say.

Hopefully, thanks largely to the 16 Stairs of Joy, Heaven can wait.

Even if the last boxes at the old place cannot.

Stricter commenting guidelines?

Here’s The Central Oregonian’s, wonder what percentage of our comments at KTVZ.COM would survive if we firmly enforced such a set of rules? (Heck, I’m guilty of ‘random thoughts’ myself now and then;-)

Commenting guidelines:

This is intended to be a constructive forum for the use of civilized people. Please adhere to the following principles:

No obscene or vulgar language, either direct or obscurely spelled or couched
Don’t slander or libel fellow commenters, reporters or subjects of our stories
Post comments that pertain to the topic – no advertising, soliciting or ‘random thoughts’
Don’t promote illegal activities, violence or hatred of groups or individuals
Remember: this is you. Say things you’re proud to have the responsibility for authoring.
Feel free to suggest corrections, enhancements, ideas for follow-up stories.
Flag comments that you see that are in violation of these principles

If you violate these principles, you may be permanently banned from participation.

The National Survey Survey — Enter to Win! (Or Lose!)

Thank you for responding to this request from the National Survey Association! (Which popped up on your computer screen and won’t go away, so what choice do you have?)

Our research has shown that the average number of surveys the average American encounters in an average month averages 1,034 — up 194.2 percent from our last survey survey, conducted a year ago.

We know you may be feeling overwhelmed with the number of restaurants, utilities, bookstores, gas stations, massage parlors and animal husbandry facilities – among others — who are asking you on a card, phone call or those receipts to please take “a few minutes” of your time to “tell us how we’re doing.” (As opposed to the old-fashioned way of, um, how much of a tip you give or saying something nice (or not so nice) to your server-person, the manager (if he or she isn’t busy reading all those surveys) or a blank-faced embroidered-shirt doofus at the local Big Box.

But you should know that America’s Businesses have become so automated that we don’t believe in face-to-face, voice-to-voice contact. Only numbers count – and the only way WE can count YOU is to amalgamate your views with that of the Public at Large, so we can decide how best to serve YOU! Whoever YOU are.

So please do fill out this very brief, 48-question survey, after providing us the same e-mail address, demographic and income info, blood type and shoe size we’ve asked of you after each of the previous 1,048 times you’ve visited our Website or answered this call, always precisely timed for when you are in the shower or otherwise indisposed.

As for this survey about surveys (which we call ‘The Mother of All Surveys,’ and you’ll soon see why), we promise cross our heart hope to expire shortly that this VERY brief survey will NOT take any longer than 4,263 minutes to complete, after which you of course will be entered in a prize drawing for the Special Gift of Your Choice (a cheap plastic pair of binoculars, gawd-ugly tote bag or compact tissue holder with built-in tweezers).

Oh yes, the questions we’re asking include:

On a scale of 1 to infinity, 1 being “I wouldn’t answer this question if it gave me the last airpack on Mars” and infninity being “I want to marry this store and bear its children!”…. how much do you agree with the following statements?

–My favorite hobby is filling out surveys.

–My sole purpose in life is to fill out as many surveys as possible.

–I enjoy surveys because I hate face-to-face interaction and prefer anonymously praising or carpet-bombing the places I shop, eat, or otherwise must make use of.

–I love love LOVE surveys because I have absolutely nothing better to do with my time. Nothing. Whatsoever. Trust me. Or ask my wife. Wait, don’t ask her.

–I believe today’s American businesses have absolutely no way to find out what I like or dislike other than these online or endless phone surveys that present such leading questions as to stack the answers in the way only masters of spin control can.

–The only thing I enjoy more than filling out an endless parade of surveys is watching Viagra or Cialis ads, with his-and-hers bathtubs and soft romantic music that also leave 4-year-olds across the country threatened with a mouth full of soap for asking, “Mommy, what’s a four-hour erection?”

Again, from the deepest recessed hearts of the National Survey Association (motto: “We haven’t a clue unless you tell us what to do!”), THANK YOU for agreeing to proceed to the following 1,093,426 questions on our survey (hey, it’s been a while) – and we promise to never, ever ask you all these questions again.

Until next week.

Hey, computers can have Attention-Deficit Disorder too!

Whoever you are, have a nice day!

Back to the Future: Loving Magazines Again

A quick note to say how much I love my Nook Tablet (when I can tear myself away from the keyboard to read on it.)

Books? A few. Web? Yep, looks fine.

But I’ve always been a magazine junkie, and had faltered and let many lapse because of my hoarding instincts, and also because of all those pesky renewal mailings, oy did I grew to despise those seemingly weekly nag-mails!

But on the Nook, not only are the magazines cheaper, but you pay by the month (feels cheaper and usually is), and it comes out of your account. No muss, no fuss. (I recently did the same thing with finally re-upping with OPB. Makes me feel good watching every Nova, Nature or Frontline again;-)

Anyway, some mags are smart and make it easy to get the Nook version of their magazines for free if you pay for the print subscription (which I’ll admit feels dumbly redundant but I understand the economics are … unsettled.)

That’s how I get Time, and Newsweek, and Wired. But I’ve also signed on for ones I’ve meant to read — The Atlantic (great long-form writing), Reader’s Digest (which keeps reinventing itself and is just plain fun), and geekfests like PC Magazine (which went digital-only years ago and is looking all tablet-spiffy in its latest redesign.)

Oh, and the last Newsweek, with Mad Men (not a fave show but hey…) on the cover, was completely done in 1966 look, right down to the ads. Mix of new info and nostalgia, so cool!

And I just read my first issue in years of U.S. News and World Report (remember that one?) and while it has a smidge of the light stuff, it’s straight-ahead Washington, D.C. news and … well, it’s a newsmagazine, not one big piece of fluff. Love it.

I told the kind folks at Barnes and Noble there’s just one thing you can’t get on it: The time away from work to enjoy it. But I’m trying!

Kleenex makes me mad

OK, not the tissues, per se.

But at some point this year, Kimberly-Clark decided to make the tall, roughly 280-count boxes of tissues I’ve bought since time immemorial … extinct, apparently.

Now don’t get me wrong – I don’t spend all my life blowing my nose or wiping away tears or picking up messes. But … I don’t like it when a company messes with my routines and makes me change out tissue boxes more often in various places around the house.

I have no clue why they did this, but all of a sudden, within a few weeks or months time, at every store I went to, they had just … vanished. Replaced in most stores by more house-brand rougher-on-nose tissues.

I was miffed enough to try to reach them through social media. Posted a note and evrything, and … no reply at all. (Maybe I’ll try the 800 no. on the bottom of the box – what, only weekdays 8a-4p CT? – if only to ask the logical question … why? A paper shortage? Slow sales?)

Ever have something you’ve bought as long as you remember, a daily staple of life just … vanish without a word? It’s ridiculous.

Another grand example – white sauce powdered mix (not the yucky canned stuff). Deb uses it for the sauce for a recipe we call ‘Eggs on a Cloud,’ a yummy dish from McCall’s Cooking School, a series of colorful recipe sheets and binder series from about the time we got married in the early ’80s.

For a long time, no problem finding them. Now, go ahead, check the sauce aisle. Hey Knorr, where the heck do you keep the stuff now? Or did you stop making it in favor of the fifth variant of teriyaki, BBQ or other sauces/gravies?

Little things, to be sure. But they add up, I tell you!

I guess it’s sort of like the notion that just when you  really fall in love with a TV show, they cancel it.

And don’t get me started about The Beatles and a decade (the ’70s) or two wasted waiting for ‘the next Beatles.” When we knew well and good there wouldn’t be one.

(Now there’s a left turn in conversation eh? Well that’s just the way I think;-)

Reclaiming Life, Sundays and My Blog

Sorry. Again.

As usual.

See, I tend to start thinking that this blog must have Finely Crafted, Very Important Things.

Otherwise it’s ‘Dear Diary, today I went to the grocery store….”

So rather than small news, I offer no news.

Because I’m too busy with “real news.”

Bleh.

So I’ll try to break that infernal habit and … just say it’s been a busy 4 months since I last talked here.

My eldest brother, Dave, came to town and … without bothering you with all the mess, let’s just say it’s been an unexpected … adventure. Some rewards but bizarre twists and turns and headaches.

He had a stroke in late September, but is doing better now, at a local assisted-living center. Driving them crazy a bit with his ways (don’t I know it), but … I love to make him laugh. I see a bit of my late brother Pete, and hear our late father’s laugh.

I’m easily prone to melancholy (I found a 1985 bottle of window cleaner and thought back and … almost went to tears. Over window cleaner.) So I thought I’d wait to blog until the situation family-wise resolved itself.

Like they ever really do in a neat package. This ain’t (yes, I said ain’t) no movie.

I will always try to make things enjoyable. Like the recommendation of the Nook Tablet from Barnes and Noble. Also sold at other stores that are hyping the only slightly cheaper Amazon Kindle Fire. Nook is better, but spring the extra $50 for the latest, not last year’s model. It’s worth it.

What a wonderful way to read my Time, Newsweek, Readers Digest, The Atlantic and great books like “The End of Business as Usual” by Brian Solis (I could link this but hey, you have Google too;-) or one I stumbled on thanks to WordPress, ‘Mindfire: Big Ideas for Curious Minds” by Scott Berkun. Check ’em out and get to thinking of new things. What fun. 

(Ooh, WordPress has moved up the simple scale even farther, with live preview no less. Coolness.)

Anyhoo, thank you for reading this, and you have a wonderful, semi-stress-free, healthy holiday season.

I’ll blog more, I promise. And one way to do that is to give myself a 10-minute limit for typing so I don’t think I have to Tell Something Monumental. I post lots of links to things I find interesting on my Facebook page, but … blogging has its own nice lil benefits.

I’ll try not to be a stranger;-)

A Pledge to Reject the ‘Blame Society’

Fear, anger, frustration, disgust — or all of the above?

All of the above is winning in our latest KTVZ.COM Poll about folks’ prime emotions regarding the awful display of partisan bickering amid the debt crisis on Capitol Hill.

How do we break the seemingly endless, for-sure vicious downward spiral of juvenile finger-pointing, breast-beating and general lack of maturity in our politics?

As usual for a reporter, I don’t have the answers. But also like any good reporter, I want to at least help make sure we’re asking the right questions. That we’re not framing the issue the way the partisans on either side of the fight want us to. To at least open the mind to some different thoughts of our own, not those the folks who trout out selected red herrings want us to react – of pure emotion rather than logic.

Some of what’s below is no doubt from the Department of Redundancy Department. And I have little doubt that some will “see through” (heh) my fervent desires and brand me as a naive Pollyanna who loves the idea of a group hug and “Kumbaya,” who doesn’t understand how politics “really” works, etc. I know all the platitudes: “Those who stand for nothing will fall for anything,” “moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue,” etc.

Amazing how we’ve allowed “compromise,” “negotiation” and “moderation” to become dirty words in the eyes, minds and even hearts of too many. That it seems many would rather see the country devolve into civil war than “give an inch” on their “principles.”

Anyway, I pounded this out the other morning after another of those chain-letter e-mails with a pledge to “save our country” made the rounds. If you agree with much of it, great. If it makes your blood boil in “he just doesn’t get it!” fashion, oh well. But it’s from my heart AND my head, and … hope it strikes a chord or two:

A Pledge to Reject the ‘Blame Society’

1. I will not re-circulate every e-mail suggestion for ‘fixing’ Congress – or anything else – knowing that simple answers are for simpletons and emotionally based, feel-good wholesale changes usually are proposals that at least have unconsidered tradeoffs and downsides — not to mention being “dead on arrival” politically.

2. I will honor the Founding Fathers and their wisdom, but not believe they were ‘literalists’ whose every word, deed and writing was to remain unchanged forever more. They did not envision our world, and while their founding principles should always be embraced, to not advance or change to reflect today’s realities would be like hewing to every element of the Old Testament, literally.

3. I will reject extremism in ALL its forms, and will be wary of anyone who claims to have a corner on “the truth you won’t hear anywhere else,” because I know they are appealing to my heart and spleen and asking those to overrule my head, and they want me to believe “our side” has all the answers and good folks, and “their side” is wrong and dumb and evil, their every idea is to be rejected without consideration, etc.

4. I will encourage our elected and appointed leaders to truly consider ALL good ideas – even those from the other side of the aisle – and in tough times to resist engaging in the “he started it!” kindergarten whines that we all should have left behind in kindergarten.

5. I will point out cognitive dissonance whenever and wherever I see it, knowing that while all of us would like to have our cake, eat it too, not get fat and have someone else pay the bill, I left the world of fairytales behind at a young age and should not return to it in my adulthood.

6. I will stop letting anecdotal awfulness — the $1,000 hammer, the wayward cop brought up on charges – color my perception of my government, which like any large enterprise with a huge customer base will never please everyone, and who really does only one thing badly in widespread fashion — getting the message out of the simple, good things it does every day. It will remain in damaging paralysis when those seeking to bring it down or get their person/party in are allowed to paint government as evil personified. Government is a reflection of us and our strengths and weaknesses, and to assign it larger blame – or credit – than it deserves just makes it harder to get anything good done.

7. I will reject extreme “throw the bums out” term limits for what they are – a bid by those driven by anger, vengeance or political opportunism to turn from career politicians to perpetually amateur politicians who can be even more manipulated by career bureaucrats who really pull the gears of government, and lobbyists who are looking out for their companies’ and causes’ self-interests. As they should.

8. I will embrace true negotiation and compromise – not on principles, but on policies – and always call on our elected and appointed leaders to be specific about what they would do and have done, rather than waste our valuable time telling us all the bad things about their foes. Tell us why you are good, not why your foe is bad, because we have a brain and can judge and choose and remember all by ourselves, and the personal attacks and negativity say more about you than it does them. I will ask our leaders to be specific, be detailed and be honest about your proposals, and don’t appeal solely to our emotions or misguided wish for simple answers to complicated problems.

9. I will not  blame every bad thing that happens in my life or the world on our president or Congress (or local elected officials for that matter) and will not give them credit for every good thing, either. Much – in fact, most – of your life is beyond their control, thankfully.

10. I will not take comfort or joy in my foes’ failures or tragedies, will reject the notion that civil war or Judgement Day are things to eagerly anticipate (because our side will be proven right and the others will “get theirs”), and will try to walk a mile in my opponents’ shoes whenever possible. Because the only way to advance as a community, nation and people is to move forward together and leave the bickering for the 5-year-olds in the back seat on a long vacation ride. And just like then, I will be the parent, and when the ‘stop touching me!’ and ‘he started it!’ whines come from the ‘children’ in our ride toward the future, we will be the parent, and say, ‘I don’t care who started it — I’m finishing it!’ And I will cling fervently to the belief, hope and prayer that such a mindset truly is our only hope of peace and progress.