Question of the day

Watching the media make up and spin the story of the San Bernardino terrorist incident there is not a lot I can say in response. The picture says what I'm thinking

9 Things to keep in mind

This has been around for years, but it is always topical

9 THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND TODAY

 

#9   Death is the number 1 killer in the world.

 

#8   Life is sexually transmitted.

 

#7   Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

 

#6   Men have two motivations: hunger and hanky panky, and they can't tell them apart.  If you see a gleam in his eyes, make him a sandwich.

 

#5   Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day.  Teach a person to use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks, months, maybe years.

 

#4   Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in the hospital, dying of nothing.

 

#3   All of us could take a lesson from the weather.  It pays no attention to criticism.

 

#2   In the 60's, people took acid to make the world weird.  Now the world is weird, and people take Prozac to make it normal.

 

#1   Life is like a jar of jalapeno peppers.  What you do today may be a burning issue tomorrow.

For Adults Only

This past week has taught me that "higher education" does not necessarily result in "higher intelligence". My mind has a difficult time grasping the concept that people need Trigger Warnings that a discussion or an article might, just might offend the listener/reader. Or that people require a Safe Space where they don't have to have reality intrude on their concept of self.

If you believe in closing your mind to other ideas and if you feel threatened by other peoples thoughts I suggest you stop reading now:

If you need a Trigger Warning or a Safe Space, you are a child who should not be allowed out in public without a responsible adult to watch over you.

Because you are not an adult.

An adult accepts resonsibility for their own actions.

An adult isn't offended by someone who disagrees with them.

An adult knows how to have reasoned discourse without getting emotional.

An adult does not require others to support him/her.

An adult knows that words are just that, words.

An adult knows that their actions define who they are, not what others may think or feel about them.

A child, throws tantrums when they do not get their way.

A child wants others to do everything for them.

A child screams and yells at others when their own wishes and desires are not met.

A child cannot stand not  being the center of attention and being pampered.

A child is incapable of having reasoned discourse or a civil conversation.


So if you need a "Trigger Warning" or a "Safe Space" you are NOT an Adult.

You are a CHILD.

Maybe it's time you grow up like the rest of us.  and if someone who claims to be an adult tells you that you need those warnings and spaces?  They are simply children trying to masquerade as an adult, and trying to lead you into being just as self centered and spoiled as they are.

Taking Resposibility

 I work with a wide variety of personalities in my job as a mediator. Since I’m supposed to be non-judgmental while I guide the parties to a mutually agreeable solution to their problem I spend a lot of time listening to stories that support their position. Often, the stories are exactly that … a story. Designed to explain why things happened the way they did.

And all too often the story completely denies any responsibility for what happened.

Just recently I had a case where the defendant blamed the plaintiff for the injury the plaintiff had received because “they should have been walking on the other sidewalk across the street”  and “the medical treatment they got cost too much money and I don’t believe I need to pay that much” for the injury caused by their negligence. They were eager to admit that an injury had happened, but blind to their responsibility for causing the accident and the injury. It was all the other person’s fault for being present and therefore they were responsible for the accident.

Believing as they did, the defendant insisted that they didn’t need to discuss the situation and certainly didn’t owe any money to anyone. They also believed that the plaintiff owed them money for having the temerity to sue them for damages. Not all mediations are successful and this one went back to the court … where the judge ruled the defendant had totally responsibility and must pay for the damages. Something any reasonable observer could have predicted.

In my practice I’m seeing this attitude occurring all too often because my generation taught the younger generation that failure is society’s fault and that the individual is not responsible for anything other than self-satisfaction. And the younger generation continued and expanded that silliness by insisting that no one should suffer the stigma of failure.

I don’t have any solution, all I can do is hope that in the future (near future, I hope) the idea of resiliency and responsibility takes root and finds fertile ground.  

Laughter is the best medicine

Several years ago I had the "opportunity" to mediate a dispute between two adult males. I can't call them gentlemen because their actions and behavior belied the concept of gentle and polite conduct.

One party was a real estate salesman who managed to talk the other party into bankrolling his excursion into the world of buying cheap and selling dear, i.e.: flipping rundown houses to gullible buyers. He was a good salesman, and I'm sure had the ability to successfully sell booze to Baptists, but his weakness was believing that because he was a successful salesman he also knew construction and project management. Events proved him wrong on both counts, but that certainly didn't stop him from believing he could pull a renovation off at the expense of whoever was bankrolling his project.

His partner was an equally good salesman, only his forte was separating people from their money with a variety of financial schemes, not the least of which was never paying an expense out of his share and always shorting the profits in his favor. Cheap seemed to be his mantra and if a coat of paint would cover the mold he would argue that watering the paint was the way to go.

The dispute that brought them to my attention was a simple purchase, renovation and resale of a house in an gentrified suburban setting. What should have been a 6 week flip had, by the time they came to me, lasted more than two years. People who live off the credulity of others depend on  verbal agreements and rarely utilize the written word to document their actions. Contracts are anathema and major decisions are made verbally  in a "we are both honest businessmen" state of mind. There was absolutely nothing documented outside the legally required property transfer when they bought the structure and even that contained clauses that a lawyer would find suspect and a judge would most likely find criminal. Both parties tried their best to persuade me that while he was as pure as driven snow the person sitting opposite him was the devil incarnate and that I should not believe a word he was saying.

My job was to find common ground and guide the parties towards arriving at a mutually agreed solution to the problem. Dealing with two self centered uncaught proto-felons was a sure route to failure and after several hours of listening to their repetitious justification as to why I should believe them and not the other guy I finally decided that they were never going to address the essential task of resolving the issue.

It didn't bother me that I sent them away without solving their problem. A problem they did not want to resolve, because each wanted to crush the other ... I guess because without knowing why, they each saw themselves in the other and didn't like what they saw.

My final task that day was to wait until they had departed so I could laugh out loud over their verbal antics and unprofessional behavior. As my folks used to say "You have to laugh, otherwise you'll cry"

Are we circling the drain?

 

In the past 50 years I’ve lived the experience of my country descending from an aware, confident and capable country to a neurotic, divided and self-centered collective of tribal states struggling for local supremacy.  I also believe that all the little power hungry groups that work so hard to create “today’s crisis” are not the true and basic cause of the issues we face as a nation. Black, White, Conservative, Liberal, Atheist, Practicing (fill in your religion), Left, Right, etc. are all labels that reflect what I believe to be the two positions that divide our culture.

 

What divides us as a nation more than anything else are the political, economic and social positions that proclaim that government is either the problem or the answer to all the problems we are struggling to resolve. These days they are usually describes as “Statists” or “Libertarian” and those are labels I can work with. Basically Statists are committed to the position that government is the answer and that anything that is not permitted by law is forbidden. Libertarians on the other hand are firm in their opinion that government is the problem and that if it is not forbidden by law it is permitted.  

 

While these positions might seem to be irreconcilable our system of governance over the past 239 years proves that if reasonable people, regardless of their political position are willing to listen to the other person’s opinion and to negotiate fairly the best possible solution will be arrived at. Our present problem is that, as a society, we have lost the ability to listen and negotiate and find common ground. Driven by liberal and narcissist attitudes and now an attitude adopted by all members of the social order we are a polarized nation.

 

I have concerns about how we can return to the balanced and cooperative society we once were. There is a high probability that whatever the solution(s) might be it will be dissociative and perhaps even violent. I grieve for my children and their children and apologize that as an ancestor I didn’t do a better job in preparing the way for them.

Sal

Salt is an ancient commodity that was, at times, used as a portion of the wages paid to soldiers in the Roman Army. Its use as a portion of wages was so ubiquitous that the Latin word for salt became the root word for salary.

Even today salt is used in trade in many parts of the world as a substitute for cash. The third world is the biggest user of salt as a unit of trade which brings us to a story I read about the use of salt in  American Public Education.

Under the gentle dictate of Michelle Obama and her renowned school lunch program the disposal rate of bland, tasteless and inedible has soared and only the garbage man is happy with the school lunch program forced on future generations by a lady who's only authority comes from a marriage and not from ability.

Enterprising kids are smuggling salt into their lunch rooms and trading or selling it to other kids. One school administrator was quoted as saying, in an article written by Elizabeth Harrington:

 Children are creating their own black markets to trade and sell salt due to First Lady Michelle Obama’s school lunch rules. During a hearing before the House Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education, chaired by Rep. Todd Rokita (R., Ind.), a school administrator told Congress of the “unintended consequences” of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. “Perhaps the most colorful example in my district is that students have been caught bringing–and even selling–salt, pepper, and sugar in school to add taste to perceived bland and tasteless cafeteria food,” said John S. Payne, the president of Blackford County School Board of Trustees in Hartford City, Indiana. “This ‘contraband’ economy is just one example of many that reinforce the call for flexibility [with the rules],” he said.

With the track record of inept and useless decisions by the political leadership we now have I have great fear for the stunts they will try in the remaining years of the administration