A List of 8 Things that Need to End

In no particular order.

1. Twitter Articles.  I don't mean articles about Twitter, but rather articles from (in theory) legitimate news sources that consist of 20%-60%+ Twitter quotes.  I've literally seen articles that had something like two paragraphs of real content followed by dozens of Twitter references.  This is lazy journalism at its very worst.
2. Devaluing Work.  "She's just a waitress" (something I overheard not that long ago).  It's time we stop, as a society, stratifying work by our perception of its monetary value.  Want to know who the hardest working folks I know are?  That would be anyone in a Call Center, Waiters/Waitresses, and most folks working at any Dunkin Donuts.  All hard work is noble.  The most valuable person in the world isn't Jeff Bezos or some Walton next of kin, it's a plumber when you have a furnace emergency in January.  We need to stop celebrating athletes (who are just entertainers playing a game) and the rich/famous for no reason (Kardashians, for example) and start recognizing the folks on the front-lines of the economy.  Oh, one more thing:  The default tip in a restaurant should be 20%.
3. Facebook's Monopoly.  I noted this in another posting as well.  Facebook has simply grown too large, it has become too influential, and some of its practices are questionable at best (current reference HERE).  That noted, it's too late to turn back the clock on social media, as it's not an important part of the lives of many.  Where are the alternatives?  I've done some research, but nothing stands out. 
4. Manufactured Election Hot Button Issues (that die out the next day).  This one is self-explanatory, but I'll offer an example...transgender bathroom scares.  Yes, nothing gets the professionally paranoid more riled up than talk about men using the ladies bathroom.  Personally, I don't care what bathroom anyone uses, just as long as they wash their hands and clean up after themselves.  In fact, in Sweden, some of the bathrooms are gender neutral; think "all stalls".  Anyway, the louder a politician yells about an issue right before an election, the more we should hold them (and their issue) in suspect.
5. Insignificant Penalties for Animal Abusers.  Anyone who is cruel to an animal can very likely be cruel to a fellow human.  Now I'm not suggesting life in prison for killing a dog (for example), but I am suggesting real jail time, not a fine and a promise to be good next time around.  I'll note that I was once called "stupid" or something like that by a fellow commentator on a Scranton Times article.  Of course, that commentator was posting under a pseudonym.  Which brings me to...
6. Anonymous On-Line Commentators.  Few things in this world are more pathetic than anonymous keyboard commandos.  The Scranton Times is full of them.  As a matter of fact, when it comes to the Scranton Times online edition and regular story commentators, I'm one of two who posts under his/her own name, which is kind of ridiculous.  
   
7. Shopping on Thanksgiving, a.k.a. "Let us give thanks for greed".  There is no legitimate reason why a retail store should be open on Thanksgiving Day.  None.  Zero.  Why is it so difficult to put greed aside for one day in this country in order to allow the families of retail workers to celebrate Thanksgiving together?  You can find a list of stores that were both open and closed this past Thanksgiving HERE. 
8. Expensive Engagement Rings.  You can find an interesting article on this topic HERE (Sometimes the younger generations get it right).  Look, if money is no object to you and you want to get an expensive engagement ring, well, more power to you.  However, that's not reality for most folks, and the money spent on an expensive ring could be used for so many different and more important things.  The whole custom was concocted by as a way to sell more diamonds (reference HERE) anyway.  

North Korea, here's your long distance dedication.

On one hand, I guess we could actually thank the government of North Korea for saving us from another Seth Rogan film (especially all of the promotional interviews that go with the release, where we get to hear Mr Rogan tell us time and time again how much he likes to smoke pot).  And yes, building a film around killing the leader of another country isn't such a great idea.  On other hand though, decisions about what society should consider as being appropriate are best made through discussion and debate, not blackmail.  What's more, I have no doubt that cyber-blackmail has just become the weapon of choice for every bad actor in the world.

Noting the above, and with a tip of the hat to the late Casey Kasem, here's my long distance dedication to the government of North Korea.

Big Men Shedding Tears

This is a relatively long article, but well worth the read.

Bikers Against Child Abuse

I was really, really moved by the mission and the work of this group.  You can find out more about BACA at their website.  The group is a 501(c)(3) charity, meaning that your contributions to their good work could (depending on your individual tax situation) be tax deductible.  In a world where it is seems that there is a lot going wrong, it was nice yesterday to read about people trying to do what's right.

My top 10 wishes for NEPA in 2013

In no particular order and for no particular reason, and with no hope for most of them to actually happen anyway.

1. Graft - That in the absence of pressure from the electorate, federal authorities continue to squeeze the elected elite in NEPA.  It's rather sad when you look at the number of "not so secretly" corrupt politicians in NEPA who continued to be re-elected year after year, only to fall to federal investigations and indictments.
2. Electorate - See #1.  That the electorate in NEPA starts to think about qualifications and results when it comes to selecting individuals for public service...as opposed to bizarre notions about what little coal patch someone grew up in, the ethnicity of a candidate or the idea that they may "scratch your back" if "you scratch theirs".
3. Consolidation of Services - That we end small governments.  Please, someone do explain to me the cultural, political and economic rationale behind the separate governments in West Pittston, Exeter, Wyoming, West Wyoming, Forty Fort and the like?  As I drive through these towns (and many like them) it's insane to think that each little town duplicates services over and over and over again.  Of course we don't need to be naive about this:  the reason behind the duplicity is that it allows for the creation of multiple little kingdoms, complete with multiple little kings.  Time for that to end.  Towns can keep their names, if that makes some folks happy, but there's no reason for services to be duplicated across imaginary borders.
4. Economy - That NEPA slowly be weened off public sector employment.  I'm convinced that a part of our economic troubles in the area has been an over-reliance of the government for employment.  Coming with that is the still lingering perception among many that the best jobs in NEPA are those that are funded with taxpayer dollars.  They aren't.  Period.  Local chambers of commerce and elected officials need to do more to encourage a vigorous private sector.  Militias are marshalled and politicians rushed into action at the mere thought of a threat to "Da Depot", yet we don't see nearly the same effort and sense of urgency when it comes to private sector employment concerns.
5. Scranton - That banks will stop lending to the city, that revenues will continue to fall short of expenses and that city leaders will finally wake the Hell up.  If you are spending too much money, the first part of the solution is to stop spending more money.  The city can not and will not borrow its way into solvency.  Period.  As I have said repeatedly, Scranton already is bankrupt...it's just we need to make it legal.
6. Lackwanna College - That the school reconsiders the naming of the Mellow Theater.  See #1 & #2.  This is a powerful reminder of the chummy relationships that existed between power-brokers in NEPA and how the electorate in NEPA consistently turned a blind eye when faced with rampant corruption.  Bob Mellow was a thief while in office, so why is he being rewarded with this honor?
7. Susquehanna River - That NEPA pays attention it it's greatest natural resource.  I can think of few more under-utilized natural treasures in NEPA.  We have a major river flowing through our area and yet we do very few things with and for it.  Maybe this comes from back in coal mining days when the river was viewed as little more than a glorified toilet and industrial waste highway.  Anyway, how about every town that sits along the river simply commit to keeping their shoreline clean and debris free in 2013?  It would be a start.
8. Blogging - That all the good work undertaken by the likes of the NEPA BlogCon squirrel ladies and NEPA Blogs continue. Encouraging the open expression of ideas is an important element of a vibrant society, and I am firmly convinced that the Internet is a powerfully enabling tool in this arena.
9. Media - That the professional local media outlets, be they print, radio, television or Internet, make the challenging of assumptions a priority in 2013.  I get it, WNEP (for example) has to cover every little local fire, and they have to interview, on camera, the witness who has the poorest grasp of the English language and the worst teeth.   Fine, we can all accept that as a cost of doing business.  But how about more investigative reporting on corruption?  How about some in-depth reporting on why the Scrantoon/Wilke-Boro/Hazelnut MSA has consistently had the highest unemployment in Pennsylvania?
10. Tolerance - That the residents of NEPA be just a bit more tolerant in 2013.  People who are atheists are not immoral.  People who support the right of a woman to have an abortion are not baby-killers.  Gay folks are simply folks...who may behave differently in the privacy of their own homes than others do.  We don't all have to agree on every nuance of life, but we should all agree that someone else's difference is not a threat to our existence.  We need to stop demonizing, through our words and deeds, those who may not act like the majority.  

News of the stupid

Background:  for some bizarre reason, I was diagnosed with asthma early in 2011.  Prior to the actual diagnosis, I had felt short of breath every once in a while, as if I couldn't couldn't actually breathe deep.  Anyway, it all came to a head when I ended up having to go to the Emergency Room of a local hospital in April (I think...) of 2011, gasping for air like a goldfish pulled out of its tank.  Fast forward to now and I have to take a daily medication and I possess two inhalers, neither of which I use with any regularity (I do use the rescue inhaler once in a while, mostly when I am somewhere with a lot of air pollution).  Anyway, among the crappy things that can happen to your health, asthma is by far and away one of the least crappy as it can be easily treated.  What's more, there is nothing I can't do relative to activities that I could do before the asthma diagnosis.  No harm, no foul.

Mindful of the above, one of the things that folks with asthma are never supposed to do is smoke.  Ponder this for a moment:  with asthma, your ability to breathe is compromised; when you smoke, you compromise your ability to breathe.  Seems logical.  Taking it a step further, here's what WebMD says:

"Smoke from cigars, cigarettes, and pipes harms your body in many ways, but it is especially harmful to the lungs of a person with asthma. Tobacco smoke is a powerful trigger of asthma symptoms.

How Does Tobacco Smoke Trigger Asthma?

When a person inhales tobacco smoke, irritating substances settle in the moist lining of the airways. These substances can cause an attack in a person who has asthma.

In addition, tobacco smoke damages tiny hair-like structures in the airways called cilia. Normally, cilia sweep dust and mucus out of the airways. Tobacco smoke damages cilia so they are unable to work, allowing dust and mucus to accumulate in the airways.

Smoke also causes the lungs to make more mucus than normal. As a result, even more mucus can build up in the airways, triggering an attack."

You can read the full article HERE.  Fortunately for me, I've never smoked and I never will.  Anyway, this whole thing sounds like a mental lay-up.  Well it would for those of sound mental capacity.  Enter Ms Lindsay Lohan...Lindsay Lohan Treated for Asthma Attack.

One level I genuinely don't really give a damn what Linday Lohan...or any number of other mock celebrities...do, in or out of the public arena.  But on another, it's just so, well, STUPID.  It's almost painful to think about actually.  Lindsay Lohan is someone who is known to smoke like a chimney, so this isn't a case of just doing something that you know to be bad for you, it's a case of knowingly engaging in a behavior that is MORONIC.  This is just amazingly stupid.

Now if fairness, I will also add this following to end this micro-tirade:  at work, we have a cafeteria that has glass walls; one of these walls looks out over our designated smoking area.  Years ago I was sitting in the cafeteria (I don't normally spend much time there, as I tend to eat in my office) and noticed someone using an inhaler...most likely for asthma...right as they were walking directly to the smoking area.  That's right, this person was opening up their lungs so that they could be an even more efficient smoker.  Damn.  Moronic behavior in this area, it seems, filters from the "famous" to the common folk.

As Forrest Gump's mother once famously observed, "stupid is as stupid does".

A special note to the anonymous individual who keeps leaving comments...

...on my post about that rag known as the "Stars and Bars":


Dear Sir/Madame,

I very well might debate you as to the "real" causes of the Civil War.  I just have one requirement though:  please comment under your own name.  Why?  Well while I do allow* anonymous comments, I can't say that I actually respect people who write things anonymously on the Internet, with very few exceptions.  How can I respect someone who says "I have this conviction" while at the same time also saying "but I don't want to be identified with this conviction"?  It's a silly contradiction in terms, and I'm being kind by using the word "silly" as a descriptive.

So either continue to comment anonymously and not expect any kind of response from me OR comment under your own name and I might actually respond in kind.  My $10/year, my rules.

Oh and remember...

Available for sale HERE in case you want one for your very own.

Have a Nice Day!

Steve Albert
Scranton, Pennsylvania






(*) This sounds so haughty, namely that I "allow" anonymous comments.  In point of fact, when it comes to run-o-the-mill comments I could care less:

a) who comments

and/or

b) whether the comments are anonymous or not.

Remember, I don't do this to entertain anyone other than myself.  Other than deleting comments that are just thinly disguised spam (for example, I've deleted countless comments from law firms every time I would blog about my own divorce) & blatantly offensive hate speech, I pretty much don't give a rat's posterior what anyone writes.  Just don't expect me to react like Pavlov's dog just because your decided to grace me with your wisdom.

Neutering Literature, follow-up

Leonard Pitts, an African-American, also agrees that neutering classic works of literature is a mistake.

Leonard Pitts column, January 10, 2011.

Worth reading.

Neutering Literature

Every once in a while you see something in the news that really catches your eye.  THIS STORY did that for me.

Now if you are not inclined to click on the above link, I'll give you the Cliff Notes version:  a new edition of Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "Tom Sawyer" has been edited to replace the "N-Word" (also known as "nigger"...more on that in a moment) with the word "slave".  Maybe the idea here is to not offend readers, but I think it does the opposite.

Now is the word "nigger" offensive?  Yes, it is a very offensive word.  But the world is full of offensive words.  Is the intent here to pretend that this particular word doesn't exist?  Or that the word wasn't frequently used during the time when these works were created? 

To answer my own questions...

One need only listen to much of more urban music to hear the word in question used very frequently.  Clearly, kids these days know that this word exists.  Now whether they know that it is offensive...and why it is offensive...is probably another question.  Maybe it's not the works of Twain that we need to strike this word from...

and

This word was used very frequently during the time of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer.  That's a simple, basic fact.  

So why edit the word out?  I honestly don't know.  I simply don't buy the "not to offend readers" argument.  Maybe, just maybe, it's not the readers who are being protected.  Maybe it's the misguided sensibilities of adult editors that is actually being protected in this case.  Regardless, any time art is "edited" everyone should be offended.  How is this any different that putting a pair of shorts on a classical Greek sculpture? 

Editing a classic work of literature is wrong, regardless of the intent. Period.  End of story.

A final thought:  George Carlin once observed that there "are no bad words...there are bad thoughts...bad intentions" and I am inclined to believe him.  That's why I generally speaking shun the replacement of a certain word with "the N-Word".  I do understand how offensive that underlying word is, so I'm not going to over-use it, but let's not forget that it is just a word.  The world needs to pay more attention to intentions behind how this word is used and maybe less attention to its use in literature.

Pssssttttt....Catherine, it wasn't the doctors that gave him cancer

I love the cult of celebrity that exists in this country.  No where else on the planet can you find people who are famous, for simply being famous.  Every once in a while though you do see a story that is interesting on a deeper level.  Case in point:  the cancer diagnosis of Michael Douglas.

If you haven't heard, Michael Douglas (who I first saw on the TV show "The Streets of San Francisco") has been diagnosed with stage 4 throat cancer.  There are tons of article out there on the topic, so I'm not going to bother with a hyperlink, as I'm thinking that part of this story is pretty much self-explanatory anyway.

What I find fascinating is an article that appears in the current edition of People magazine, where the wife of Mr Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones complains about the diagnosis taking so long.  You can read that story HERE.  The first paragraph pretty much sums it all up:

Actress Catherine Zeta-Jones admits having a hard time watching husband Michael Douglas battle throat cancer and has told People magazine she is furious with doctors for not detecting his disease sooner.

I do feel bad for Mr Douglas and his family, as getting this kind of news is no doubt one of the most difficult things a family can endure.  However part me read the article and thought that while it's not great that it took  time to get this diagnosed, maybe...just maybe...some of the rage should be directed towards the things that most likely caused the cancer in the first place.  To be just a bit harsh, it's fairly likely that Mr Douglas' smoking and drinking habits are the real villains in this story.  Don't just take my word for it, as the online cancer guide sums it up pretty directly:

Unlike other types of cancer the causes of throat cancer is quiet clear. People who smoke or otherwise use tobacco are at risk of developing the disease. Excessive alcohol use also increases risk. Smoking and drinking alcohol combined lead to an extreme risk for the development of the disease thus the known cause of throat cancer.

(link HERE)

I know that it's easy to simply blame someone else for a problem, but sometimes the real blame lies a little closer to home.  

Hopefully Catherine Zeta-Jones no longer smokes herself.  If she still does and is genuinely concerned for her family, perhaps some of her rage should be channeled into preventing her children from having to deal with another (future) cancer diagnosis. For example, the Centers for Disease Control estimates that about 80% of lung cancer deaths in women are directly attributable to smoking.  

Of course the moral of the story here is pretty clear:  if you smoke please try to quit. If you don't succeed, then keep trying.  This drug isn't worth sacrificing your health, your life, it isn't worth what you pay for it, and it certainly isn't worth the grief your family may very well have to go through when (and if) you come down with that future cancer diagnosis.

California Judge Gets One Right

For years I would see pictures of Hollywood starlets (a.k.a. "pop tarts") such as Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan in clubs looking several sheets to the wind. As if that wasn't pitiful enough, I'm positive that many of these pictures in the past were taken when they were under the legal drinking age of 21.

Now why would I care? I'm not a fan of Ms Lohan's movies and as far as I can tell Ms Hilton doesn't actually do anything to be a fan of, so what's the big deal? Well it's a basic issue of fairness and hypocrisy. If it were your kid or mine getting caught in a bar while being under age they would be be in trouble. However in the bizarro world that is Southern California, where fame trumps propriety, little things like a law enforcement were secondary to fame.

It's against this backdrop that I read where Superior Court Judge Marsha Revel sentenced Lindsay Lohan to 90 days in jail for violating the conditions of her parole. You can read the story HERE. To Judge Revel I say a hearty "Bravo!". It's about time that the law be equally enforced, regardless of race, creed, color or (in this case) fame.

I know that Ms Lohan has a family that would mortify Gomez and Morticia. I know she is probably got more chemicals flowing through her veins right now than your average cancer patient. I know it's tough to be constantly told you are wonderful and then have to face the fact that you aren't. Cry me a river, as I also know that if you break the law there are consequences. Even for Lindsay Lohan it seems.

Maybe, just maybe, this is the best possible thing that could ever happen to the "Mean Girls" star. Thanks Judge Revel not only helping Lindsay but for also showing that the law applies to everyone.