Wizard of Oz and 50th

(News-Herald, December 11) This weekend Franklin Civic Operetta marks the end of its 50th anniversary season. That’s no small achievement. Theater takes an investment of considerable time and effort. Finding people to make that investment is a challenge; there are communities far larger than ours that can’t do it. It says something about Venangoland that not just one, but two theater groups can flourish here.
Time demands are big. Turnover is frequent; burnout not unheard of. There can be plenty of extra drama; nobody ever stepped out to perform on stage because he had a tiny ego.
Broadway producers have big budgets and their pick of thousands of talented hopefuls; community theater directors work with a couple of bucks and hope they will have at least as many auditioners as they have roles to fill.
Sometimes community theater can achieve greatness that you only get from gifted amateurs. Sometimes, not so much. Sometimes community theater can take bold chances, and sometimes it plays it safe. Sometimes it provides its audience with a challenge, and sometimes it goes straight for the theatrical comfort food. In fifty years, Civic has done all that.
Civic celebrates its fiftieth even as its theater, the Barrow, celebrates its fifteenth anniversary. It has been an impressive trip from a barn and a concrete slab to a fully functional showpiece of a theater.
In my universe, a great community theater production has a little bit of everything—something for audience to look forward to, something familiar, something they’ve never seen before, something they can only get from live theater. This weekend’s mounting of the Wizard of Oz is the perfect finish to the anniversary season.
Part of the work has been done by the writers, who have kept everything anyone ever loved about the classic movie, but added small twists, additions, and expansions (I always wondered why, at the end of the film, Miss Gulch didn’t just come back for Toto and start the whole mess over again). Musically, you get extras as well—the verses that you’ve never heard, and the long-lost musical number that was cut from the film in production.
Director Ted Smith has avoided the mistake of simply trying to reproduce the movie on stage. First, he has opened up the Barrow; the show blossoms right off the stage and fills every corner of the house. I would never have thought of Oz as an intimate theater-in-the-round sort of show, but the depth and space that this staging opens up (a whole new section of stage was built for this) creates a world that is both more intimate and at the same time broader and bigger than anything seen previously.
Second, there’s a whole new visual element to this Oz, particularly in the costuming. This Oz looks feels familiar yet new, comfy yet fresh (bolstered by the set work of Ed Ramage, possibly the single most valuable person in all of Civic). You recognize it and remember it, and yet at the same time, it’s full of surprises. The end effect is like seeing Oz for the first time and not the six hundredth.
The cast itself is outstanding. Local theater fans will see old favorites, including Jacob Krupitzer doing some of his best work ever as the Tin Man and Mike Leisher (the Cowardly Lion) proving once again that he is a great comedic actor trapped in a leading man’s body. Wicked Witch Jamie Agnello’s return to the local stage is absolutely triumphant, and Linda Leisher was born to play Glinda.
But audiences also get to see something new. RGHS student Molly Burkett’s Dorothy is the emotional linchpin of the show; her “Over the Rainbow” is the audience’s assurance that they are in good hands for the evening. And BCT newcomer Brett Sloan manages to both honor Ray Bolger and create a magical new scarecrow of his own.
These leads are absolutely superb, and they are surrounded by a crowd of munchkins, Ozians, flying monkeys, dancing ghosts (courtesy Jackie Fike) and winkies who make Oz come alive for just a too-short evening. A great orchestra led by Steve Luxbacher creates a lush carpet of sound, and an army of stage hands complete (literally) the picture. A small army of people of all ages from all over Venangoland stretch themselves and the beautiful theater to bring a great finish to the anniversary year.
Word of caution. Tickets are in short supply, but rumors of a sell-out always start way before it actually happens. Call for tickets. You don’t want to miss this one.

Living Where You Work

(News-Herald, December 4) Personally, I agree with residency requirements.
My first reason is the obvious one. If you are paid by the taxpayers of a particular city, township, or school district, the money that those taxpayers give you should go back into that community.
You should pay taxes there. More than that, you should do your shopping there, eat in restaurants there, buy your gas there, drop your change in the Salvation Army bucket there, pay your parking fines there.
I don’t care if it’s good economic times or bad—those of us who are paid with local tax dollars should be using those dollars to prime the local economic pumps as much as possible. Local taxpayers support us. We should support them.
But there are reasons beyond the economic for local employees to have local addresses.
I’m convinced that one of the ills of our culture is the distance that has grown between people who make decisions and the people who bear the brunt of those decisions. Giants of Wall Street can play stupid games with other people’s money without ever having to face those other people. CEO’s don’t have to explain their obscene pay packages to either their employees or the customers who foot the bill.
One of the advantages of small town life is that we see each other in a variety of settings. A public official can’t hide behind an office door and a press release; he’ll get a chance to explain himself in the grocery store, at the ball game, in the choir loft at church.
It provides unparalleled accountability for both sides of the coin. If you know you’re going to have to account for your choices to your friends and neighbors, it gives a whole other perspective on the decisions you have to make. Knowing that your mistakes will come back to haunt you—for years—is great motivation to try to make fewer mistakes.
And members of the public have no excuse for not making their voices heard. If you didn’t let a public employee know your reaction, whether it was good or bad, there is no excuse. If the public figures don’t know what you think, that’s nobody’s fault but your own.
Granted, this kind of localized dynamic is never perfect. Some public officials can be unremitting jerks, regardless of public reaction (the plus here is that, when you get in trouble, all you have to say is “It was Officer Jerkface” and everyone says, “Well, say no more”). And some members of the public have trouble telling the difference between “being heard” and “being obeyed.”
I have known teachers who didn’t want to live anywhere near their students. But I believe it’s a great attitude adjuster to teach students as if the might be your neighbor, or grow up to be your mechanic, plumber, lawyer, or colleague. All public employees should put more than their money back into the community that supports them; they should also contribute sweat and time and effort, and young people in particular should see their teachers doing so.
I recognize there are limits. People on the public payroll often have spouses, and those spousal units have residency requirements of their own. It’s also true that selling a previous house to move into a new neighborhood in our market can be an exercise in prolonged economic suicide.
So while I’d like to see a residency requirement for all tax-supported jobs in our area, I’m realistic about the practical obstacles.
And, of course, I’d never require anyone to live in Cranberry, that downtrodden land of totalitarian tyranny run rampant, where Big Brother suppresses people’s God-given right to fire howitzers at 3 am and erect carcass and car-frame sculptures on the front lawn.
Thank goodness so many outspoken citizens have taken every opportunity to get the word out, from ranting at public meetings to erecting signs. Cranberry is an awful, awful place.
It’s an artful piece of PR. Were I resident of Cranberry, I might be tempted to brag about the growing tax base, the booming business district, the new school and hospital facilities, and the fact that Cranberry, by population, is the modern center of the county. Not to mention lots of pretty countryside.
I would, in short, be thumbing my nose at Franklin and Oil City instead of at myself.
But that’s okay. Since Venangoland is one big community, I see no reason that people who are scared away from Cranberry can’t settle in Oil City or Franklin.

Gratitude 08

(News-Herald, November 27) Americans don’t always do gratitude well, and Thanksgiving comes at a particularly challenging time. The weather is turning harsh and the days are shortening. With election results only a few weeks old, some percentage of the population is always warning that America Is About To Be Destroyed.
And yet, after over two centuries of electing supposedly evil, incompetent men (the last President to be elected without receiving similar invective was George Washington, and even he had his detractors), the Republic still stands.
Perhaps that’s something to be thankful for as Americans—that what we imagine as The Worst can happen, and yet life goes on and we can all survive and thrive.
Governments promise “Give us lots of power and we’ll insure that Bad Stuff will never happen.” Of course, it’s not just governments that make that empty promise. Lots of individual humans try to live by the same principle—if I do X, Y and Z, then no Bad Stuff will ever happen to me.
It’s good to take that kind of personal responsibility, certainly better than people who live by the rule “I’ll make any choice I feel like, and the consequences should not be my problem.”
But it’s a mistake to believe that with total control of your life, you can guarantee it will turn out exactly as you hope. First, you can’t have total power (other people and disease, to name just two forces you can’t control). Second, even if you have it, there’s no guarantee that things will turn out as you hope.
I know you can find people who will claim to have done it. “I’ve eaten a box of saltines every day and never had a moment’s sickness” or “I always listen to my mother, and I’ve never been hit by a truck.” Which is just another way to take personal credit for the luck and grace in one’s life.
This brings us back to my first point: Americans have trouble being thankful. We prefer to believe that we have earned every good thing in our lives, that we don’t owe anybody anything.
Since it’s Thanksgiving, let’s consider what the Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock would think. They would think that “we don’t owe anybody anything” is exactly backwards. I don’t have room for their long answer, so let’s shorten it to this simple principle: God (and therefore the world) doesn’t owe you squat.
By all rights, the Pilgrims should have been steamed. They could have been standing there, shaking fists at heaven. “God, first you suckered us over to this dump, and then you killed our friends and family, half our entire group,” Brother Grumpy McPilgrim could have shouted.
But the Pilgrims, dour and stern, never believed that they deserved better, that they had earned easy treatment by God. If anything, they believed that the Almighty had let them off easy. And so, instead of being angry about what they had lost or self-satisfied about what they had achieved, they were grateful for what they had. They took focus off what they had lost and put it on what was still strong and alive and growing.
It’s trite but true; there is always something in your circumstances to feel unhappy about, and always something to be thankful for.
Despite the occasional frustrations, I’m thankful to be doing a job I love. I’m thankful that 99% of the people I deal with are likeable and decent. I’m thankful that I’m reasonably healthy.
My son claims that I am overdue to mention him and his sister in this space; today seems like a fine time to remedy that. I am grateful for both my children, grateful for how much they love each other and their parents and the rest of their far-flung family.
I could be grumpy about how far away their trails have taken them for the time being (and some days I am), but mostly I am thankful for their courage and their adventurous spirits. I am awfully proud of them, and while it takes some sacrifices of time and space right now, I admire their willingness to stretch in pursuit of their dreams, how much they have grown up and keep growing. At the same time, I am thankful for cell phones and the internet.
We have our full share of whiners and doomsayers in Venangoland, and they have plenty of material to feed their carping. But today of all days we can be thankful for the good parts, grateful for what’s alive and strong and growing.

Holiday Season

(News-Herald, November 2003) Time now to enter the holiday season. Really, finally time—I do my best not to acknowledge any pre-Thanksgiving Christmas activities.
I remember Christmas. I’m sure many of you middle-aged or older folks do, too. I’m not sure what younger people are going to remember when they grow up.
There was a time when it was kind of fashionable to complain about the commercialization of Christmas. Now it hardly seems worth mentioning; Christmas has been swallowed up like a rabbit going down an alligator’s gullet.
In stores, the Christmas displays go up when Halloween items go down. Thanksgiving, once the opening salvo of the Christmas season, is now just a small speed bump on the rocket train to Consumerville. Thanksgiving has been dropped from the mainstream of consumer advertising; Lord knows, if we spent too much time reflecting on what we were truly thankful for, it could occur to us that buying a bunch of stuff might not be the highest, finest expression of the human spirit.
And of course I’m in error to refer to Christmas anyway. In an attempt to broaden commercial appeal, we now lump it with Hannukah and Kwanzaa and National Pickle Day and heaven knows what else into some vague sort of Be Nice and Buy Stuff season.
It is now “the holidays” or “the holiday season.” Christmas has literally become the generic holiday, stripped of every speck of meaning or purpose, except of course to buy stuff. God bless all the music programs in the area that present Christmas concerts instead of “holiday concerts”—may they have large, appreciative audiences until the day the ACLU comes to cart them away.
And poor Santa, still the most shamelessly exploited pitching device in advertising; in recent years the American flag has given him a run for his money, but the usually big poorly bearded guy still leads the pack. Santa pitches everything from soft drinks to furniture and barely bats an eye. In a way, I’m thankful for his existence as a crass commercial symbol, because otherwise I’m afraid we might be treated to the spectacle of, say, the three wise men bringing a twelve-pack of Coke to the manger while Mary decides she really needs to rest by kicking back in a La-Z-Boy recliner.
I have thought for years that it was time for a Take Christmas Back movement, but I think we’ve all been too busy shopping to organize it. Perhaps it’s the kind of battle that can only be fought guerilla-style. So let me offer some possible acts that you can commit on your own to help reclaim the season.
Turn off the TV. At least some. The constant stream of advertisements contributes to the debasement of the season. Even if you’re watching a decent and respectable holiday program on the tube, every 42 minutes of program comes with 18 minutes of advertising.
Would any of us really, seriously announce, “I thought we’d sit down and get in the mood for Christmas tonight by watching a half hour of commercials.” I doubt it. Not that I don’t appreciate my seasonal tv—the original Grinch and Rudolph are must-see’s in my home. But the beauty of technology is that I can now watch those on tape or dvd without a barrage of sales pitches along with them.
Enjoy local Christmas stuff. There are plenty of real live people making real live Christmas stuff happen right here in the county. Franklin’s Light up Night is such a great spectacle that I can just about forgive it for happening before Thanksgiving. Franklin Civic Operetta’s annual presentation of Messiah highlights along with some more modern Christmas music makes a great night of musical decorating, like a gorgeous Christmas painting in sound. Every high school in the county offers seasonal musical treats as well. None of these events include commercials.
In addition, the vast number of churches in Venangoland guarantees a wide assortment of Christmas events to suit just about any taste. I know there are some folks who get uncomfortable with talk of God and Jesus and stuff, but in all fairness, They were there long before Santa and Coca-Cola.
Plan to extend the season in meaningful ways. At this time of year, many many groups decide that it would be nice to go sing carols for shut-ins or at an old folks home. If you have the urge to spread that holiday cheer, that’s a good thing. But while you’re at it, why not make a commitment to come back and visit in February or March, when winter is dragging on and the Christmas Outreach Season is long past.
Remember—money can be replaced, but the time you give to someone is irreplaceable, and therefore the most valuable gift of all.

Honoring Heroes '08

(News-Herald, November 20)Thanksgiving is coming up soon, and that means it’s time once again to remember our heroes.
Soon it will be too late. Thanksgiving will officially arrive, followed immediately by the Shopping Onslaught (and I expect that it will be a bigger onslaught than ever this year, as retailers battle to convince us that it’s our Patriotic Duty to get out there and spend lots of money). Then Christmas itself arrives, followed by New Years, followed by the post-holiday collapse and hibernation as we draw big blankets of snow up around us. Then our three-week-long spring turns to summer, and we’re busy with the young folks’ vacation, and on, and on.
So now is the time. Now is the time to salute someone else, someone that has been a hero to you.
I will remind you, as always, that “hero” is not synonymous with “saint.” Every hero has claybuilt feet, or hands, or elbows, or left ventricles. And really, if someone were flawless, what would be heroic about him or her? If you swat a fly or eat a piece of cake, we don’t call that heroic—we just call it easy.
We all have our obstacles, our impediments, our challenges, and on days when we aren’t very heroic, these become our excuses.
My heroes are people who get the job done and do the right thing, even if it might be hard. It’s easy to do what you feel like, without taking the time or effort to examine whether it’s a good choice or not. It’s easy to hide behind rules and policy, and not make any judgment at all. It’s easy to use your circumstances as an excuse. It’s easy to run from a fight, hide from a fight, or jump eagerly into a fight that you haven’t chosen very carefully or thoughtfully.
It’s a rare person who can exercise courage and judgment 100% of the time. If I needed heroes who met that standard, I doubt that I’d have any. Since most people are a mixture of the admirable and the less-than-perfect, we have a choice of what we can focus on. We can use the less-than-awesome portion of a person as an excuse to discredit all the rest. We can give all our attention to the bathwater and ignore the baby.
It is easy to focus on the negative, to declare our surroundings a disaster area and insist that all we can do is decide what kind of fetal position we want to assume as we wait for The End. It’s also easy to slip into the State of Ultimate Denial, pasting on a plastic smile and declaring the world a bright and shiny place by refusing to look at it. It’s harder to make a thoughtful stand for what’s good and right.
If you think the world stinks, and that people are stupid and rotten, then you are helping to make that true.
If you want to make the world a marginally better place, you have the power to do that right now. You can’t fix the economy or personally guarantee that your favorite candidates fill every political office. But if you think the world would be a better place with more courageous people, then honor the courage of your heroes. If you think the world would be a better place with more faithful people, honor the faithfulness of your heroes.
Let your heroes know that you support them, that you value them at their best. You may not be in that that particular fight yourself, but you can strengthen those who are.
I’m not proposing anything philosophical, poetic or abstract. This week, as I do every year at this time, I’m asking you to write a letter.
No phone call, no quick conversation, not even an email, but a handwritten note on paper. Something that a person could save and take out to re-examine over the years.
It doesn’t have to be long and involved. A few sentences will work. Simply start out, “You are a hero of mine because…”
Don’t hedge. No, “I admire you even though sometimes you are stupid” or “I can almost forgive the time you stole my milk money.” Positives only.
Your hero will be surprised and strengthened, that much more able to bring the qualities you admire to the world. You will never have to regret not telling them while you still had the chance.
It will only take a single stamp and a couple of minutes. Don’t wait—do your part to make the world a better place, before the onslaught begins.

Honor Your Heroes

(November, 2002) It has been my practice every year around Thanksgiving time to devote this space to heroes. I believe that we need to celebrate the people that we value, and we need to do it now rather than later. When we want to complain about someone, we certainly leap right into it; why not extend the same speediness to appreciating people who do well? After all, when we appreciate people who are doing well, we strengthen them and make the world a bit more like the place we want it to be.
In years past, I have celebrated my former teachers, old friends, and community volunteers. This year I’m turning my attention to the world of work.
In the world of work, there are few things as great as a good boss.
The first boss I ever worked for was John Mahaffey. John was an unusual boss, the kind of man whose friends call him colorful and whose enemies call him a loon.
I went to work for Mr. Mahaffey the first summer after I graduated from high school, and I heard more four-letter words out of him in my first week of work than I’d heard in my entire senior year. He could be pretty forceful in expressing his opinion, but you never had to guess what his opinion actually was. I always found him to be decent and honest; he was a good first boss.
I am fortunate that my most recent boss is also a good one. Bill Vonada has not been the principal at FHS for many years, but he has demonstrated most of the qualities that you can hope to find in a good boss.
Bill listens and pays attention. He manages to hear what you’re saying and to listen for the point you’re trying to make by saying it. If what you’re saying is not good news, he doesn’t try to manage you or convince you to stop saying it.
Bill talks (which is not uncommon in bosses), but he speaks in plain English and says what he means. He is what was once called a “straight shooter,” the kind of person who uses words to communicate information instead of covering it up. If Bill thinks you’re right, he says so. If he thinks you’re wrong, he says so. If he doesn’t have an answer, he says so.
Bill works for the team. This whole team concept seems to be a tough concept for some bosses out there. Teams include a variety of jobs, some more critical than others. A good captain knows how to lead, but he knows the value of his team-mates, too. A quarterback with a great passing arm is useless without a receiver.
Teamwork is a two-way street. Bill takes care of his people and does his best to see that we can do the jobs that he does, in fact, expect us to do. This is a simple equation that escapes many leaders—leadership is a relationship, and no relationship can survive when one side does all the taking and the other does all the giving.
Like most of the good leaders I’ve known, Bill seems to have a clear sense of the purpose of his organization. There are lots of good people in leadership roles whose better sense is clouded by ego or insecurity. Bill is one of a handful of leaders I’ve known who never seem to let pride or ego get in the way of doing the job. When someone would rather look good than do good, problems always follow. Bill, I would guess, is squirming as he reads this; he would rather do good than look good.
Whether he knows it or not, I have learned a lot about leadership from Bill in the last few years. This is just my time of year to say so.
I would bet that you have had a good boss or two in your life. If you have become a boss, I’ll bet that somewhere in your past is a person from whom you learned some of the principles by which you now lead.
What I encourage you to do this very weekend is take out a piece of paper and write that person a letter. You can keep it simple: “You are a hero of mine because…” We are far too reluctant to praise bosses. We figure they’re “just doing their job” or we don’t want to appear to be sucking up.
But we live in a world where good bosses are an increasingly rare and lonely breed. Just like anyone else, maybe even more so, they need to hear that their work is noticed and appreciated.
The thing about most heroes is that they never know they’re heroes unless someone else tells them so. It’s up to the rest of us to let them know.

Playing with Youtube again...

The GOP Battle for Party Identity

(News-Herald, November 13) It didn’t take long for the Republicans to start eating their own young. It was to be expected. The Republican Party is the new Democratic Party—fractured, unfocused, unclear of its own identity.

Political groups are like a bunch of college students in a dorm hungry for pizza. When there’s no pizza, and nobody has enough money to buy a pizza alone, pooling money makes sense. Everybody pitches in, everybody’s excited, everybody’s a big happy family, waiting for that pizza.

And then the pizza comes, and the bickering begins. Do I only get one piece? Why is he getting two pieces? Who the heck ordered pineapple on this?

The more times they go in together for pizza, the more the memory of those pizzaless days fade, the more people want their own way, and the more they forget that they can’t actually buy a pizza alone. The other people seem increasingly obnoxious, demanding and annoying. And when the day comes that they can’t even get the pizza, all hell breaks loose.

That’s how the Democrats became a bickering party standing for nothing except keeping a bunch of special interests happy.

The recent Republican era began with an uneasy alliance between political conservatives and social conservatives. Political conservatives were the good old boys of the party, the sons of Goldwater, who were all about a small government that didn’t spend many tax dollars and left everybody alone to live out their own traditional values without government interference.

Social conservatives (the so-called “religious right”) shared that interest in traditional values, and they were excited (back when they were called the “moral majority”) to be invited to sit in with the Big Boys. The old guard was happy to let the social cons believe they were major players as long as they would bring along their network of many voters.

But once the political conservatives let the social conservatives into the tent, they found them harder and harder to control. Social conservatives became peckish —they were repeatedly promised bold action on abortion and gay issues, and were delivered nothing of real substance. Many religious political leaders began to suspect they were being suckered.

Some of these guys took their ball and went home, but it didn’t really matter. At some point during the Bush Jr. administration, old line conservatives looked around the Republican tent and discovered that so many of the social conservatives had come in that the old guard was outnumbered.

The party that had once boasted some extremely smart and articulate thinkers (think William F. Buckley) was now filled with people openly hostile to ideas, proud that they didn’t read much, and distrustful of fancy-pants smart-aleck college-educated people and their so-called “facts.”

The party that had once preached endlessly of financial restraint found itself throwing money around like a rat in a Hickory Farms kiosk.

The party that once stood for personal responsibility promised a war that wouldn’t require us to sacrifice a single thing on the home front.

The party that once mocked Democrats for their fuzzy-headed inability to see the Big Picture decided that nothing mattered except a candidate’s position on gays and abortion. (As Diane Gramley says on her website, “These issues are more important to God than the economy.”)

The party of small non-intrusive government took over the nations’ local school districts, bought up a giant chunk of the economic system, and created new law-enforcement powers beyond any the nation had ever seen before.

The party of professional politicians is even realizing, with a mixture of shock and surprise, that while they can spend a few months smearing their opponent and then leave it behind, some of their followers actually believed that invented foolishness and are still ranting about it.

Whether these shifts are good or bad is not the point. The point is that the political and social conservative wings of the Republican Party disagree big time about some fairly fundamental stuff, and now they don’t even get the pizza.

Palin was brought onto the ticket to make social conservatives happy, so she becomes the default spear-carrier for one wing of the party (which never liked McCain) and the target for the other. The battle about her is the beginning of the battle to determine what the Republican Party is going to become-- whether it is going to retreat to its own traditional values, or leave them behind for good. Either way, it won’t be pretty, and somebody is going to end up without a pizza.

I Heart My Computer

This is an old column from 2004. I offer it as a chance to look back fondly at how much computer technology has advanced in the interim.

(June, 2004) This week I’m writing on my back-up computer because my main computer is in the shop. Of course, I only have a back-up computer in the first place because a couple of years ago, its spectacular failure showed that I needed a new computer.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate the computer era; I do. Years ago in my first computer class at Allegheny College, I learned to program in Basic on punch cards. After tedious hours of painstaking troubleshooting, I was able to create a program that could alphabetize names. This is better.

And despite all the time and irritation involved, I still thought it was cool when the program finally worked. Useless in any practical sense, but cool.

Computers were going to usher in an age of coolness; we were going to live like the Jetsons. We would pull out our keyboards and touch buttons and stuff would instantly happen. Cool stuff. Well, stuff does happen. Just not always the stuff we want. And it happens no so much instantly as somewhere between Instantly or After A While or even Never.

For folks who grew up in the Machine Age, computers are baffling and frustrating because they are so mysteriously fickle. If your tractor doesn’t run properly, you find the part that isn’t working and you repair or replace it. Then the tractor works. If it develops a little mechanical quirk, you learn where to rap it with a hammer, and you and the tractor get along fine.

But if a computer program doesn’t work properly, your best “repair” tactic is to turn the computer off and then on again, after which it may run. If that doesn’t work, you can play phone tag with technicians or call a helpful service rep in New Delhi and maybe they’ll have an idea, or maybe they won’t. Once it runs again, have you fixed anything? Who knows?

The biggest impediment to the arrival of the computer age is product reliability. Research buying a laptop, and you quickly learn that a critical feature is warranty and service, because the only thing that the manufacturer can guarantee about your laptop is that sooner or later, something’s going to stop working correctly. For ANY computer, only the most naïve would expect it to work the way it’s supposed to every single day.

That’s just one computer. Computer techs love the idea of networking many units together because it should make so many cool things possible. But computer techs are a lot like engineers—given the choice between an awkward solution that works and an elegant solution that should work, but doesn’t, they are invariably attracted to the elegant failure. Is there anybody in the working world whose heart doesn’t sink when they hear those magic words, “We’ll be upgrading the system. Wait till you see how much better it works!”

Networking computers is like interconnecting all the patients in a critical care ward—sooner or later, someone is going to bring the whole thing to a gasping halt.

Computers can do many cool things; they just don’t do them all the time. The internet is a great example of technopromise linked to technogarbage. The problem is even greater here in Venangoland, where instead of superfast cable or broadband, we’re still mostly internetting with packets strapped to the backs of little geriatric gerbils. Sometimes the gerbils are fine, sometimes they’re tired, and sometimes they’re off on a little gerbil coffee break. Thank heavens that even our pokey internet can still carry us offers for viagra, porn, and financial opportunities in Nigeria.

Movies like the Terminator films have created a mythic vision of all-knowing computers, so powerfully linked that they can rule the world. I don’t buy it. Here’s the scene I imagine from the real Terminator.

Terminator: Sarah Conner, I have returned from the future to—

Sarah: What? To do what?

Terminator: (Freezes in place and turns blue) Error 404. Site not available. Press any key to continue. Hit ctr-alt-del to restart.

Sarah: Oh, no you don’t. (Slugs Terminator in face with gun butt. Audience cheers wildly)

Terminator: Congratulations. You’ve been pre-approved for new low-rate home refinancing. And there’s a millionaire in Nigeria who wants to talk to you.

Unplugged Progress Report

(November 10) I guess we're coming up on two weeks without cable. For the three regular readers of this blog, here's how it's going.

I have been burning through my netflix account with abandon. House season 4 is finished (now THAT'S how you do a season finale) and Arrested Development season 3 is under way. NCIS has absolutely nothing of substance to recommend it, exactly, and yet is perfect brain popcorn. And Code Name: The Cleaner is 90 minutes of my life that I can never have back.

I listen to lots more music, and read even more than usual. But, I am still struggling to find something that allows the brain to just shut down and rest. Cable is not just back ground noise-- it's company you don't have to be a good host to and something sparkly to keep the brain just occupied enough. It is a kind of waking sleep, and it's precisely that state which I wanted to get away from. But I'm now casting about for some sort of mindless activity with which to replace it (no, blogging doesn't do it).

I didn't expect this to fall into place immediately-- any time you give up a drug you have a certain amount of detoxing to do. I'll be curious to see how that goes.

Loss

(News-Herald, November 6) Many writers are busy picking apart election results. But other stuff has happened in the last week. Big stuff. Things beyond mere politics.

Sometimes when death comes, it comes with a bit of warning. It calls ahead, or at least clears its throat when it walks into the room. But it is in the nature of human tragedy that it can happen at moments that are not just unexpected, but seem just wrong.

Poe thought that there was nothing more awful than the untimely death of a young woman. I don’t doubt that his insight is true, but I’m not sure why.

Part, I suppose, is our tendency to search for narrative, to organize our experiences into stories that make sense. The death of someone who has lived a long and full life is a story we can understand. The death of someone who has made a mess out of his life is sad, but it makes sense. It fits a story.

But the passing of a woman still young, a life of promise ahead of her, doesn’t work. It’s a bad story. It doesn’t make sense.

You can hear it in the voices of people talking about it, struggling to force sense into it. It’s that struggle to make sense that invariably leads well-meaning people to say Really Stupid Things. You would be better off trying to explain the Mind of God to a six-year-old than to stand in line at the funeral home and try to explain to a grieving family member why their loved one’s death is Actually Okay.

Yeah, sure. In another thousand years, we’ll all be dust. In another billion years this planet will be dust in the cold depths of space. So what. We are people of flesh and the moment, rooted here, now, in this time in this place in the universe. And now we are here, and our loved one is not. Long-range perspective does not help.

God has a plan for all of us, and everything in that plan works for the best, even if it’s in ways known only to Him. That may be. I rarely make the mistake of confusing God with Santa Claus—sometimes God demands some pretty hard things of us. I believe we can accept that and still think that some of those things stink. Big time.

A relationship with God can be a big help in these times, but I have also seen it hinder healing, bending people under the weight of grief doubled by a load of guilt because of a mistaken belief that we are always supposed to think that God’s plan is great.

I think any good relationship has room for anger. I think anyone who has had a loved one taken unexpectedly is entitled to be angry at God. I think God gets that. I expect God is still right there after the anger has run its course.

Death is not something we deal with well as a culture. We don’t even like the word—passing, gone, departed, left us, and a dozen other gentle euphemisms cushion us from the subject.

It is oddly surprising, though, that the religious and the not-so-religious agree about the importance of death-- We only have so much time in this world, and we have no way of knowing how much, so we had better make the best use of it we possibly can.

If I were going to live a million years, it doesn’t matter one whit how I spend today. If I knew the people around me were also going to live that long, it wouldn’t matter how I treated them, what I said, what I did, what I paid attention to.

I remember words from Mort Teig’s funeral years ago, to the effect that we should not be sad for the days we had lost, but grateful for the time that he was with us.

Death stinks. It hurts. It is a thief that robs us of precious time with people that we love. But that theft serves as reminder for us to value and cherish the moments we still have. If I had a million todays, they would be as cheap as paper napkins, as common as dirt. But I might have only one more, and that makes it more valuable than gold. I’m not sure being reminded of that is worth the loss of one bright, beautiful, promising life, but if it helps us resolve to honor that life, it’s a start.

All Hallow's Election

(News-Herald, October 30) This time of year a weekly columnist has a tough choice—comment wryly on Halloween, or make trenchant observations about the upcoming election.

The cheap shot is to link the two with some lame witticism suggesting that the election is far scarier than anything on All Hallow’s Eve. I’d rather not. I find this year’s Presidential race more disappointing than scary.

I don’t find either of the candidates frightening; I just expected, somehow, a better race than this. There was a time when I really respected each of these guys and imagined that we would be spared the usual wretched campaign excess. Instead, the Obama campaign has spent enough money to rescue half of Wall Street, while the McCain campaign has slung enough ugly mud to bury it (and they should know better—one of the things I have never forgiven the Bushies for is their shameful smearing of McCain eight years ago).

Some members of the electorate have raised a level of hysteria that’s just silly. I don’t believe the election of either candidate will signal the end of everything good in the country.

As far as some of some of the “information” circulating—well, here’s a quick memo. This is to those of you who keep insisting that Sarah Palin wants to burn books and hunt endangered species, and those of you who keep insisting that Obama is actually a Muslim and terrorist: You need to shut up. You’re embarrassing yourselves, and the rest of us as well. There are some perfectly good reasons to vote against either candidate; manufacturing stupid ones is unnecessary.

I am equally saddened at some “local” races. Now that John Peterson has retired, awe-inspiring gerrymandering in the Commonwealth has guaranteed that Venangoland will be forever represented by total strangers who live over two hours away. (Gerrymandering, for those of you unfamiliar with the term, is the process by which pinheaded yahoos in state and federal capitols redraw districts with no regard for actual constituents, but in order to guarantee certain seats will be safe for certain parties. Computers have greatly advanced this fine art of denying voters real representation.)

Halloween isn’t any scarier than the election, but at least it’s a bit more hopeful.

This, despite the earnest efforts of many well-meaning folks to stamp out or upstage the Great Festival of Junk Food Extortion. I have heard the arguments about the evils of Halloween, but I can’t take them seriously. If Halloween is Satan’s recruitment program, it is the most ineffective one since Uncle Sam started trying to interest young men in a free trip to Iraq. After decades and generations of trick-or-treaters in Venangoland, we should be positively waist-deep in middle-aged Satanists, and yet everyone I know somehow escaped unscathed.

Actually, as an in-town Franklin resident, I’m pretty sure that the “Harvest Festival” in the park has actually increased trick-or-treat traffic. Little masquers carpool into the city, glom up the free food in the park and then head out through town for the traditional non-wholesome stuff.

Beyond that, it should be a quieter-than-usual year in Franklin—the Friday night football game will cramp the style of the usual Franklin Heights egg war. Not so in Oil City.

There’s something a little bit triumphant about the return to evening trick-or-treating in Oil City. Sending the costumed kiddies out after dark is not just a harmless tradition—for Oil City it’s an act of courageous defiance, a night of pride and strength. It was right for the city to take a step back for many years, and now it’s right for the city to take back the night.

Of course, in the midst of all this there is an actual legitimate holiday (no, I am not referring to the new custom of using Halloween to kick off the Christmas shopping season). I’m referring to November 1, All Saint’s Day.

It’s an old holiday—the church first started festivals to commemorate all martyrs back in the late 200’s. Pope Gregory set All Saint’s Day for November 1 somewhere around 740 AD. Many modern denominations have moved it to the first Sunday in November and generalize it to commemorate all the departed faithful, a sort of Holy Memorial Day. It is an occasion that’s probably more deserving of attention than the pursuit of a juvenile sugar buzz. If your church is on the ball, you get to sing “For All the Saints,” one of best hymns in Christendom (take the time to sing all eleven verses).

Preventative Management

(News-Herald, February 2004) The best and most effective managers are those that see themselves as facilitators for their employees. They see their job as providing the front line workers with the equipment and resources to get the work done.

But there’s another type of manager who sees his job differently. This is the manager who thinks his job is to prevent the employees from doing things.

It’s not an uncommon phenomenon. For instance, you might think that the purpose of health care insurance is to help people pay for health care. Instead, the medical insurance industry is set up primarily to avoid paying for health care. And everyone has encountered one of those rare but scary librarians who wishes people would stop taking her books out of her library.

But let’s consider a hypothetical example. Say, a small company that provides drawings of industrial widgets. The purpose of the business is to make widget drawings. So a facilitating manager hires people who are good illustrators and makes sure that they have the paper and pencils that they need to create the widget drawings. His goal is to make it as easy as possible for them to produce the drawings that keep the business functioning.

A preventative manager, on the other hand, will focus on how to keep the illustrators from doing things. Keep them from using up pencils and paper. Keep them from doing anything that might cost money.

The facilitating manager does not writer blank checks. If the illustrators want to order special $3000 pencils, the facilitating manager sits down with them so that everyone can figure out how to make the realities of equipment needs match up with the realities of financial limits.

A preventative manager never has those conversations. Preventative managers usually have little understanding of how widget drawings are made, so they’re afraid that if they listen to the employees, they’ll be tricked into buying something they don’t really need.

A facilitating manager has few rules. There’s a clear job to do (make widget drawings); anything that helps do that job is good and anything that gets in the way of the job is bad.

A preventative manager has a long list of Do Not’s. Don’t use pencils with soft lead (they have to be replaced more often). Don’t fix more than two mistakes a day (otherwise they’ll wear out the erasers).

A facilitating manager has confidence in his workers. He hires people that he can trust to do the job. If he can’t trust a worker, that employee is either trained or fired.

A preventative manager is paranoid. She can never trust employees, because they are always trying to use supplies and spend money. Employees are sneaky and out to get me, she thinks, clutching her sack of gold coins.

It’s not that facilitating managers are nicer or more fun to work for. In fact, they often aren’t. If you are someone who doesn’t draw very good widgets or doesn’t much like drawing widgets, working for someone who judges you on your production of widget drawings can be a real pain. A preventative manager’s paranoid focus on everything but the real purpose of the business can make her easy to manipulate.

The real problem with preventative managers is that they do a lousy job. The steel and auto industries both suffered from preventative management in the last century; they resisted spending anything on new technology while their competition in other countries spent the money and breezed past them.

Preventative managers create a workplace that doesn’t much work. The preventative manager is focused on what doesn’t happen, instead of what does, so success is measured by a very crooked yardstick. If nothing Scary or Expensive has happened, then everything must be okay. This is not an atmosphere that breeds growth or innovation.

Bad widget drawers are rewarded because they’re not doing Anything Bad. Good widget drawers learn that if they try to hard and care too much, they’ll just be beaten down. Middle of the road widget drawers, who had the potential to become good, see which way the wind is blowing and get worse.

Customers can be initially attracted to a pitch like “We will provide the cheapest widget drawings in the industry.” But in relatively short time, they notice that they’re getting junk. “We won’t use resources to get the job done” is not a pitch that inspires confidence in the marketplace (remember those great cars of the seventies?).

Preventative managers have forgotten the organization’s purpose. Instead of “Make good widget drawings,’ their motto is “Don’t spend money. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t scare the boss.” But the gold medal rarely goes to those who do the least.

Unplugging

(News-Herald, October 23) I’ve decided to take the plunge, to cut the cord, to make a bold new life change.

Okay, not quite that drastic. But I’m getting rid of my cable television.

And no, I didn’t simply replace it with satellite dish. I do still have dvds and netflix. But I have detached myself from the stream of popular culture.

It’s not that I’m a television snob who sniffs at the common herd for lowering themselves to watch the “idiot box.” I have watched a lot of television in my life, filling my brain with a mass of cathode-ray mulch. I do appreciate the great things that tv has accomplished. I have fond memories of staying up to watch Neal Armstrong on the moon. Many of us know much of what we know about the rest of the world because we’ve seen it on tv.

Television comes with negatives as well. I think perhaps the worst is the dual curse of bad acting and bad writing. I don’t object to these twin scourges on artistic grounds, but because I suspect they’ve had a bad effect on our society. Generations of young Americans have tried to learn about life and human nature by watching characters who neither speak nor act like real human beings. It’s the equivalent of athletes trying to learn how to play football by watching a night of Bingo at the VFW.

There are plenty of reasons I’ve become disenchanted with tv. I never minded that it was stupid; I am not ashamed to admit that I logged many hours of watching Gilligan’s Island, a show with proven ability to suck the IQ points right out of a room.

So no, I don’t mind the stupidity of television. What has bothered me in recent years is the sheer meanness of it. Television has become a 24-hour-a-day celebration of what is worst about us.

Entire shows celebrate greed, selfishness and unkindness. Dramas compete to see who can present the most graphic portrayal of ugly violence. Comedy is about watching some character’s painful humiliation. In “reality” programming, cast members work to make a name for themselves. Behavior that people would once have been ashamed to reveal in front of even their closest family they now parade loudly for the entire world, in hopes that a shameless display of their ugliest selves will rocket them to some fame and fortune.

That bothers me, just as it bothers me that broadcast journalism is such a sad shadow of its former self. Once the images and words on the news would challenge us to expand our understanding of the world. Now we select the news by our preferred bias, choosing the network that comfortably confirms what we already believe. Election coverage is a bad joke. Once, news organizations were ashamed to be caught showing bias; now their skewed viewpoint is a proud part of their marketing plan. If I want real information, I’ll read it in print.

I have to admit that the party most responsible for ending my relationship with tv is—well, I’m in the clichéd position of having to look tv in the eye and say, “It’s not you, it’s me.”

I allow tv to suck hours out of my life. I’m about to head out the door to the bike trail or the river or just around the block, but first I’ll just catch the end of this show (which I only turned on to provide some random background noise in the house) and there I am, rotund posterior perched on the couch an hour later (an hour including at least 16 minutes of ads). I have every intention of sitting on the porch and reading a book, but then…

Television has become the other voice in my house, a cheap way to eat up extra time. And that’s the rest of it—a recent hike in cable costs reminded me that it’s not even particularly cheap any more. Since the nest has emptied out, I could be filling up some of the empty spots with things I love, but instead I’ve been filling up with really expensive packing peanuts. For what it costs to feed the box, I could feed myself at Leonardo’s many times over.

We’ll see if I can hold out. I’ll still watch, but only as a deliberate choice and only the things I really want to watch (House dvds, here I come), when I want to watch them (and without the 25% advertising).

A Different Kind of Las Vegas Tour

This has nothing at all to do with Venangoland, but I'm going to indulge myself.

My cousin Andy Taylor is a way cool guy. He and his wife and kids have lived in Vegas forever where he's an artist, cartoonist, journalist and blogger. One of his blog projects has been to capture the Stratosphere (the building, not the atmospheric layer) from every conceivable angle. After a year and 500 shots, he put together this little youtube featurette. Your eyes probably aren't fast enough to catch the building in every shot-- you can always go page through his blog.

Home Schooling Revisited

(News-Herald, August 2004) I have always had mixed feelings about home schooling. Over the past few years, those feelings have changed. Granted, they’re still mixed. But it’s become easier for me to understand the impulse to keep a child home.

We are living, after all, through a large scale assault on public education. As near as I can tell, No Child Left is intended to gut public schools so that some select folks 1) can get their children away from Those People and 2) can keep their money and avoid having to foot the bill for educating the servants’ children. At best, the government seems intent on creating schools where the point is not to educate, but to prepare students to take tests (the results of these tests will show conclusively how well those students have been taught to take tests).

We’re headed for a two-tier system in this country for both regular schooling and college education—one top-notch system for the rich and privileged, and another sorry beaten-down system for the rest of us. The No Child Left and school voucher folks would just like to get us there as quickly as possible.

Given that situation, I can understand a parent’s desire to get their own child out of the building before it collapses.

At the same time, I have misgivings, because I’m afraid that this sort of bailing accelerates the collapse.

The problem in many cases we’re losing the best students from public school. My objection to that is not based on any selfish desire to have the best kids in my classroom—the loss of the cream dilutes what’s left.

A while back, I watched an outstanding young local musician, and my first thought was, “What a shame he’s home schooled.” Not for him, mind you. His talent was obviously managing to grow well enough.

But as most musicians will tell you, the way you get better is by playing with other musicians. Particularly good ones. So there are dozens of other young musicians who will have a slightly smaller chance to grow because they’ll never have worked with this guy.

And music isn’t the only area that works that way. No matter what subject, classroom teachers will tell you (and the research will back them up) that the top students often drive the other students behind them, just like a runner setting the pace for a race.

So when the fastest runner is home schooled, the rest of the runners end up working to a slower pace, and they don’t do as well as they might have.

This speaks to one of the fault lines in our culture, the problem of balancing individual rights with responsibilities to the group as a whole.

If you have a talent, a skill, a special ability, an extraordinary level of drive, shouldn’t you be free to explore and develop that as best you can, without restrictions, without being held back by or for others? But if you have that kind of gift, don’t you have an obligation to use it for something larger than your own personal benefit? Do you owe it to society to share your talent?

I don’t have an answer for this one. I do know that if gifts aren’t allowed to grow and thrive, they can become twisted or stunted or simply lost. But I also know that all too often people look at a problem, say, “Hey, that’s not MY problem,” and then are later shocked and surprised that the problem was never solved.

This issue is a balance between serving society and being served by it.

Is the only value in a school what the student can get from it, or is it also important to weigh what the student can give?

The two questions are more closely related than they may seem, because the less some students give to the system, the less other students can get from it. If nobody chooses to play on the football team, then that team is not there to foster the gifted potential players that come along.

I don’t want to minimize for a moment the fact that parents have to try to make the best choices that they can for their children. But I think we sometimes fail to acknowledge that when a student is homeschooled, particularly one with a gift for art or music or athletics or writing or math, there is a collateral cost for all the other students.

The response may be, “Tough noogies. I’ve got to watch out for my own kid.” And parents have every right to take that stance. At the same time, when your neighbor’s house burns down, it’s the neighborhood you live in that’s damaged.

School Spirit

(News-Herald, October 16) School spirit matters a great to some folks; people in Venangoland often identify themselves by which high school they graduated from. Merging some of our school districts would streamline staffs, simplify transportation, cut costs and just generally make sense, but none of that stands up against peoples’ loyalty to the school that they graduated from.

At the same time, lots of grownups shake their heads at Kids These Days and wonder what ever happened to school spirit.

Well, part of what happened is the faulty memories of adults. There have always been plenty of teenagers immune to the charms of school spirit, people who don’t see any reason to owe loyalty to other people who happen to have been born in the same year and live in the same area.

But there is more to school spirit (and the dislike thereof) than coincidences of history and geography. School spirit, at its best, is about pride and investment in something larger than yourself.

Pride in your own thing is not the same thing as abuse of the other guy’s thing. “We’re number one,” is a perfectly good expression of school spirit. “You guys suck,” is not. First of all, it’s rude and classless. Second, it’s an admission that the other guy is better, that our only hope is to drag him down. Some sports fans at some schools in the region would do well to remember this.

School spirit is also about what a school district values. What does your school celebrate? What do school officials hold up as something worth getting excited about? Which students do we think deserve the recognition and admiration of their peers, and which do we leave to keep doing their thing without any special attention?

That special attention comes with a special responsibility, and it’s here where I think many schools fumble the school spirit ball. To build school spirit, we should hold up those special students with a message of, “Here’s a person who represents the whole school. This student is one of you, and represents what’s best in this school, and when this student stands up, it’s for everyone here.”

What tears school spirit down is to present those students who excel with a message of, “This guy is better than all of you guys. You should cheer him cause he’s so great.”

When students excel, there are two lessons to be learned. One is the lesson of respect for excellence in certain areas. The other is that those who excel and lead have a responsibility to their community.

School spirit decays when a school only celebrates certain narrow areas of expertise. If your school only celebrates the star tiddlywinks player, only the students who care about tiddlywinks will feel invested. Other students may feel that tiddlywinks is a pretty lame area in which to invest a school’s spirit.

School spirit decays when the excellent students, the leaders, go unrecognized or unsupported. And it also decays when they have no sense of responsibility to their school. Some high school athletes (and their parents) have come to believe that the school sports program exists to serve them. Their message: “Who cares about the school or the team? I’m in this for me!” Can they really be surprised that they don’t feel the backing of a spirited student body?

Oddly enough, I think the architects of No Child Left Behind actually understood this. Some envisioned schools with pep rallies for academics, a world where a school that won a Blue Ribbon Award would be celebrated and supported just like a championship football team. Well, it was a nice thought, anyway.

Schools that want to build spirit need to hold up a wide range of students who have achieved excellence in a broad range of arenas, so that every other student in the school can feel some connection to the many values represented. Let those leaders say, “I stand for all of us—yay, us” and not “I’m great and you don’t matter. You should clap for me.”

Imagine a gathering where every team captain, each class president, the top scholars, the homecoming queen, the top tech students, the best performers, and other student leaders all stood up to say why they were proud to represent their school. No, I’ve never seen it, either. And it may just be hokey and naïve, too. But a school is just a big stack of bricks and concrete. The only spirit it’s ever going to have will come from the people inside it.

French and Indian War

My apologies to everyone I faked out-- you will note the September 2004 byline on this column, which is one of my weekly reruns here on the blog!

(September 2004, News-Herald) This weekend a strange and varied assortment of people will converge on Franklin to mark the 250^th anniversary of the French and Indian War.

It’s a tough war to commemorate. To begin with, the start date is not entirely obvious. In 1749, Celeron claimed the Ohio valley with his infamous plates. The next year the British and French made their final attempt to carve up the continent peaceably. It failed.

Then the Marquis Duquesne was appointed governor-general of New France with instructions to chase the British out of the Ohio valley. To put some muscle where their mouths were, in 1753 the French built forts at Presque Isle and Le Boeuf; later that same year they evicted trader John Frasier from his cabin at the confluence the Allegheny and La Riviere aux Boeufs (roughly French for “the river of beef”—heaven only knows what possessed the French to pick that label for what we now call French Creek).

Here’s where young George Washington passes through to scout the French locations. On the way, he decides that the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela would make a dandy fort location. The British begin construction, but the French chase them away and finish the structure as Fort Duquesne. A battle between troops led by Washington and troops from Fort Duquesne in 1754 is generally considered to be the first actual battle of the war.

The British sent Major General Edward Braddock; his major achievement was to get many troops killed, himself included. The following year, 1756, the war, which had already consumed considerable human and financial resources, was officially declared.

In 1758, Brigadier General John Forbes recaptured Fort Duquesne from the French. In 1759, the French gathered forces here at Fort Machault in preparation to try to retake the fort; instead, in what some cynics would call a signature French strategy, they ran away.

The British had pretty well mopped up the French by the end of 1760, including the construction of Fort Venango, but not till 1763 was a treaty signed to conclude the business. By that time, native American tribes had decided that the British were lousy neighbors. Although Indians get equal billing in the war’s title, Pontiac’s uprising, which resulted in the total destruction of Fort Venango and which was not squashed until 1764, appears as a small separate footnote.

So why care about the war? If the British had lost, maybe we’d all be washing down croissants with snooty wine; then again, Napoleon might still have sold it all to Thomas Jefferson forty years later anyway. And that’s just playing “what if”, a game that’s a lot like “who cares.”

The war did train many future heroes; Washington not only made a name for himself, but learned a great deal from British generals about managing an ill-supplied army.

The war also set the stage for the revolution. The colonies moved to join together for their mutual security and protection. Ben Franklin’s famous woodcut of the disconnected snake captioned “Join or Die” was created for the French and Indian War, not the revolution. A congress of colonies at Albany convinced colonial leaders that a Union of the Colonies was needed to protect them all from the French. The Albany Plan of Union provided the basis for many of the ideas later considered in setting up a new country.

In short, for those of you with a more literary than historical bent, the French and Indian War is to the United States what The Hobbit is to The Lord of the Rings. To revisit it is to revisit the roots of who and what we are as a nation.

It is also, on a weekend with a fresher, more horrifying anniversary, a reminder of a time when war was very different. To kill a person you had to look at him. And despite the tension between the nations, Washington could gather intelligence about the French by walking up to their encampments and asking them. For his troubles he was invited in, fed a nice meal, and sent politely on his way. Not a trick you could try with Osama.

The encampment this weekend will be held both days in the parks from 9 till 5. Warriors of all sides will be represented, complete with close order drills and the firing of muskets and cannon. A variety of 18^th century crafts will be demonstrated and guests will discuss everything from the forests of the day to the old French Road from Franklin to Presque Isle.

Perhaps not even oil put Venango County in the thick of such major American history. We were the front lines of a great war for empire. This is a good weekend to learn something new about our home and see some cool stuff from another age.

One More Columnist Takes on the Financial Mess

(News-Herald, October 9) Like most other average Americans, I’m not sure what the heck is going on with the much-ballyhooed economic crisis. I’ve read about it -- I don’t think television is capable of doing any useful coverage of a mess this complicated. But it would be nice to know whom, exactly, I should be mad at.

I’m not too mad at all the people who acquired mortgages they couldn’t afford. I’m more angry at the shysters who pushed those mortgages. I know the buyer is responsible for his own choices, but in situations like this I think of my Grandmother Binmore, who would have fallen for this kind of thing. She would have been easy pickings, not because she was dumb, but because her generation grew up believing that official people from official organizations didn’t encourage customers to do something stupid. If a banker or a government official said it was a good idea, you could trust them. I’m much more angry with people who prey on that sort of trust than with those who exercise it.

But the bad mortgages wouldn’t have trashed an economy. The estimate I’ve seen is that 94-96% of all mortgages are still being paid on time. That’s not a collapse of the housing market.

No, I save my real ire for the financial bigwigs who invented a new kind of side bets on mortgages, and then sold side bets on the side bets.

In other words, one set of shysters sold Uncle Wally a three-legged race horse. Then another set of shysters placed bets on the three-legged horse with everyone else’s retirement money. And back in DC, the shysters who were supposed to make sure the horse race wasn’t fixed decided to let the other shysters run free to exercise whatever stupid thought entered their heads.

So we end up poised between a rock and hard place, the devil and the deep blue sea, paper and plastic. We could either watch the nation’s economy crumble, or watch the federal government wrack up unimaginable debt while gobbling up another chunk of the formerly-private sector (and we may yet get to see both).

Congress, given the chance to stand up for the nation’s best interests and use patriotism as its guide in difficult times—well, Congress blew it completely again. Instead of being a monument to extraordinary vision and leadership, the bailout bill is a bloated monument to self-serving pork. Under the pretense of guiding the firemen to the burning building, Congress started looting the place.

I don’t know if the bailout bill is a good thing. One commentator said that it was a horrible thing, the worst thing ever—except for doing nothing. That may be true. Maybe when so much of the public trust is threatened, Uncle Sugar must act.

The desire to federalize chunks of the private sector shows many things, not the least of which may be that Americans have simply become too soft and wimpy to tolerate the ups and downs of free market capitalism. But I think it also shows an understanding that the private sector holds a lot of public trusts.

Someone who owns a restaurant or a movie theater or a widget factory controls resources that are a public trust. Everyone who eats out has an interest in a good restaurant; everyone who works at a factory or depends on the taxes paid by workers—all of those people have an interest in that widget factory.

Private actions have public implications. The private individuals who continue using lawsuits to harass both the ORA and persons attached to it aren’t simply exercising their own personal right to hire lawyers and be a pain in the keister. If they win these lawsuits, they will spread the word that Venango County is not just reluctant about economic development, but is openly hostile to it. And that will be bad news for all of us.

When we see private individuals in any sector making choices that threaten the public interest, the urge is to protect that interest. But if we put every public interest under the protective hand of Uncle Sugar, we will ultimately hand over control of everything to the feds. And that is truly awful news for everyone.

So maybe the cause of this mess is a perfect storm, a long line of people acting as if they had nothing and no one to worry about but themselves. It’s useful to remember that, as citizens, we all carry a piece of public trust with us.

Drugs

(January, 2003) Yes, drugs are still an issue with teens. But talking to teens about drugs has long been a big challenge for baby boomer parents.

Pundits have offered a variety of explanations. One is that boomers are feeling too guilty about their own youthful drug-induced exuberance to scold anyone else. Another is that boomers don’t want to sound any more like their own parents than they already do. And some boomers supposedly feel a great deal like hypocrites.

All that, plus the lack of any clear, convincing speech to deliver on the subject. Most boomers seem to have a hard time with any argument that stands on phrases like “the right thing to do” or “against the law.” Boomers have spent a chunk of their generation rejecting these sorts of arguments in everything from politics to jaywalking, and they don’t know how to make the point sound convincing.

We remember all too well the sorts of materials that were brought to bear on us. The movies about people who touched one joint and became drooling drug fiends never convinced anyone; we all knew people who had touched lots of joints and didn’t seem very drooly at all. The people who did drugs were never like the raving sleazy menaces in the materials we were shown; they were the same people that we’d played four square with in the playground.

We know that some of the people who did drugs turned out just fine. We know that some of them also turned out to be a mess. And the difference is just as mysterious to most of us as the person who may or may not become an alcoholic after a few drinks.

The whole illegal and wrong argument is a wash these days. I’m not saying that drugs aren’t illegal and wrong. But for better or worse, we’ve come to accept as a society that doing things that are against the law is okay if you have a really really good reason. And news developments like recent Air Force assertions that using drugs to keep long-duty pilots alert just muddy the water further.

By all means, continue to point out that drugs are illegal and wrong. Just don’t be surprised when lots of young people look back at you and ask, “So…?”

My first objection to drugs, particular for teens, is that they don’t give anything back. A good hobby is one that gives something back to the person who practices it, makes them smarter, happier, stronger. Drugs just take. I have had plenty of students whose hobby was getting high. That’s what they put all the energy and planning in their lives into, all their spare hours, all their spare money, from which they get nothing.

Sometimes I’m amazed that they don’t see it. If the person a teen was dating said, “You must spend all your extra money on me, and every three hours, no matter where you are or what you’re doing, you must call me,” that teen would dump the relationship like a hot rock. If a boyfriend or girlfriend demanded, “Go hold up a store for me,” they’d be kicked to the curb. Yet anything from tobacco to oxycontin can make the same demands and have suckers lining up to meet them.

Drugs often demand obedience and give nothing back. “But drugs help me cope and let me get away from all the junk in my life,” would be the argument many teens would offer. Which brings me to the other large reason that they should leave the drugs alone.

During the teen years, many young people develop the muscles that they will depend on for the rest of their lives. Not just physical muscles, but psychological ones as well.

If you don’t exercise muscles, they don’t get strong. If you don’t deal with the pain and challenges of life, you don’t become strong. And when it comes to strength (as with many other things in life) you are either moving forward or backward—there is no standing still.

A teen on drugs is like a child in a wheelchair. Spend too much time there, and pretty soon it’s twice as hard to get up out of the chair and locomote under your own power. Stay there way too long, and you become incapable of getting around on your own, taking care of yourself, navigating through the world without someone to help you.

There are plenty of things in life that can steal your strength and destroy your power. There are times when you have to bargain away a piece of that power in exchange for something else of value. Why chose to give it away and get nothing in return?

Applefest Visitors' Guide

(News-Herald, October 2) Welcome to Applefest, visitors to Venangoland! Maybe you’re here nice and early, or maybe it’s Friday and you’ve picked up yesterday’s paper. Either way, let me answer some of your common questions.

Where’s a good place to eat?

This is a tough choice. Presumably you’re not blind to the great variety of Fair Food available right in the main maw of Applefest. If you’re asking because you’d like to get out of the crush and eat a sit down meal like a grown up, pretty much everything on Liberty Street is good. We have nice coffeehouse food, classy dining at Bella’s, the world’s best bread at Leonardo’s, and sports grill dining al fresco at Oskies, as well as some other great options.

Thing is, the best part of most of these places is the atmosphere, which will be completely shot as long as you’re here. You can get in your car in the middle of the day to drive just a few miles out of town for other options (family, fancy-ish, Chinese buffet), but if you do, you might as well just leave your car in that parking lot and walk back to town.

What about the parking, anyway?

We have no idea—this mess traumatizes us locals as much as it does you. But we’re not good judges of this. You can drive down to the lower end of town and there will be lots of street parking. The distance back to the main stuff is what we locals would call “a long way” but any city dweller would call “just around the corner.” The only really practical choice is the option I exercised years ago—buy a house in town.

Can’t I just pull in over here?

No.

What about over—

No, really. And please don’t stop in the middle of the street to think about it. Just keep moving. Something will turn up eventually.

Goodness gracious! Why can’t I find accommodations that measure up to fine establishments I stay at in Pittsburgh?

Duh—because you’re not in Pittsburgh.

Fortunately, few Applefest visitors ask some version of this question. For that handful of cranky rich travelers, let me try to explain.

From ancient Egypt to modern metropolises, deluxe luxury accommodations depend upon one factor—a group of laborers who are willing to be paid peanuts in turn for devoting themselves to the comfort of their betters.

I suppose our problem here is that not many of us think we have betters (though we certainly have people who think they are betters). We’re not really up for treating you like visiting royalty. However, we will be happy to treat you like family (the part that we get along with). If that’s not good enough, may I recommend the Renaissance Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh.

Why don’t these people in front of me on the sidewalk MOVE already?

I don’t know, either. But, look—you wanted to come out to small town, get out of life in the fast lane, and enjoy the slow pace. Here it is.

I was imagining placid cow in peaceful field, not squished sardine trapped in tiny can. What else have you got?

Within walking distance (because, really, you don’t want to give up that parking space unless money is changing hands) you can find a peaceful riverfront park. Across the river there’s a very nice, quiet bike trail. Or step inside DeBence’s for a tour; it’s much cooler than you expect.

I don’t want to wander off too far. We might get lost.

If you can get lost in Franklin, you can get lost in your own home. If this is a real concern, it was a grave mistake for you to drive yourself here.

What about all the bags of quaint stuff I’ve bought?

I’ve said for years that someone could make a mint with a package-minding booth. Maybe this year someone will finally cash in. If not, I recommend a backpack, or a really big cart that you can use to clear a path for yourself.

What’s up with the one-way streets?

We prefer to only have to check one direction when we make sure you’re not going to drive over us while you search for a parking place. If you can manage Forbes and Fifth Avenue in Pittsburgh, you can deal with Elk and Buffalo Streets. If that’s too tough for you, head upriver to Oil City and we’ll show you how to get real mileage out of one-way streets.

Sound of Music (Applefest edition)

This is one of those exclusive-to-the-blog posts, because I try to avoid using my newspaper space for plugging projects in which I have a personal connection, but I have no such qualms about indulging myself in front of the somewhat smaller blog audience.

I'm directing the Franklin Civic Operetta Association production of Sound of Music. It is not a show I'm naturally drawn to. It's a show that has become associated with sweetness on the order of a pancake covered with triple-berry syrup under a quart of ice cream soaked in chocolate good with a pound of sugar sprinkled directly on top. It would be an easy show to do without really thinking about what you're doing.

At the same time, underneath all of that, there's a fairly affecting story. Maria is a young woman, orphaned, and when we meet her, hiding from life in an abbey and about to lose that last refuge. Captain von Trapp has been adrift for years, still identified as a navy captain in a country that lost its navy two decades ago. They are a pair of characters who are trying not to face their own lives, but for whom circumstances no longer that luxury.

There is, I think, a natural tendency to want to oversell the story. In theater, as in life, that strikes me as a mistake, revealing a lack of faith in the audience to understand or appreciate the struggles played out before them. It is easy to make Maria so plucky that one can never imagine her defeat, her opposition (both nuns and nazis) so cartoonish that we don't ever feel a plausible threat. At the same time, the Captain's fiancee can be played as so extreme that we see her as a wicked woman and not a plausible choice for him. Max in particular requires a balance of charm and amoral pragmatism.

Like most of Rodgers and Hammerstein's best stuff (though they did not write the book for this), SOM includes some heavy themes without reducing them to simple two-dimensional conflicts (or allowing them to suck the show into a philosophical symposium set to music). How do you balance devotion to God with the need to get a life? How do you find your way back from a life that doesn't really fit you? How do you make difficult choices in dangerous times, and how far can political and personal compromise go?

Likewise, this score of standards is like the pledge of allegiance-- so often heard that it's rarely listened to. Robert Russell Bennett's orchestrations are genius, supportive without trying exaggerate or inflate the songs. "Climb Every Mountain" does not have to be a painful piece of bombast being beaten into submission by some over-ambitious soprano, and "Do Re Mi" does not have to be treacle.

If you only know the movie, the stage version offers other treats. Max and Elsa have two songs, one a brutally cheerful piece of pep about the necessity of compromising
with whatever horrid events the world may bring. The Captain's journey is far more fleshed out than in the movie, and Maria has the chance to be a real multi-dimensional character. The song that "Must Have Done Something" good replaced for the movie is a nice little piece indeed, rarely heard (our joke has been that somebody let Little Stevie Sondheim come out of the apprentice's room in the back to write it). And what music director Steve Luxbacher has done with the kids and the nuns is awesome.

Did we manage to pull all that off? I don't know-- I direct a show for six weeks and I undoubtedly lose a little bit of objectivity. I have never worked with a larger cast, and everybody has worked hard and done double and triple duty. This set features one of the most challenging and nerve-wracking mechanical gimmicks I've ever used (I loves me the unit set)-- think two giant 17-foot lazy susans-- but thanks to Ed Ramage and the stagehands, it works and keeps the show moving briskly. I was over-lucky in casting-- virtually every supporting actor in this show has, at one time or another, carried another show as lead. And in good community theater tradition, we have veterans and newbies, old and young-- and the young come from every school system in the county, plus home schoolers.

I aimed to mount a version of Sound of Music that would be pleasing to fans of the show, but which would also be enjoyable for people who have a visceral dread of R&H. I aimed to let the light and happy parts breathe and the dark moments be as dark as they could be, and all of it to play without pummeling the audience about the head and shoulders. Our crowds last weekend responded enthusiastically.

I am really proud of these folks, including the von Trapp children, who have worked hard, sing well, and act just like real siblings. The players are turning in some of their best work ever, and the nuns are, for many folks, a real revelation. The number of hands working behind the scenes is awesome. I wanted to really show people something and not just do one more paint-by-numbers version of this stage standard. Ultimately the audiences will have to judge how well we have succeeded; I'm confident that we won't be wasting their time.