Category Archives: Current Events

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and the bah humbugs

December 18, 2015 8:14 AM , Leave a Comment ,

I’ve been on a theater kick for the past couple of years and we are right now at the tail end of the 2015 Fall theater season in Houston.  I just have to say that the theater scene in Houston keeps getting better and better all the time.  Houston has gained a national reputation for its fine dining choices and I can see a time when it gains a name as a live theater mecca as well.

But anyways, some of the local troupes that I follow put on Christmas and holiday related plays to cap the year.  Stark Naked Theater put on “Ho Ho Humbug 2.0“, Bayou City Theatrics put on “The 12 dates of Christmas“, and the Classical Theater Company put on “A Christmas Carol“.

The last is of course the classic Charles Dickens story and I wanted to see it as I’ve never seen it performed live but the other two were contemporary stories set in or near present day America and dealt mainly with how we perceive and deal with this time of year.

For better or for worse, people in this country have come to associate this holiday season with certain things.

  • Religion of course.  This is a christian holiday and at one time this was a predominantly christian nation.  Whether you agree with it or not you can’t deny that there is an influence there.
  • Traditions that bind us to certain European countries where Americans originated from
  • Commercialism which is more of an american tradition.

From the late 19th century till about the Mid 20th century this was the Christmas season (the term “holiday season” wasn’t in widespread use).  Government, Church, and commercial interests helped spread and foster the season and developed it into what we came to know as Christmas time.

But then in the mid 20th century we began to see this change over time.  People started to notice that this time of year didn’t resonate with everyone.

One of the earliest examples was the Peanuts Christmas TV special where one of the characters proclaimed that Christmas was a racket and controlled by some company “back East”.  This illustrated the disconnect that some people had always felt around this time of year.

Mass media began to notice that besides the Christian majority that there were people from other faiths in this country and that more and more new Americans were arriving from non western European lands.

At the same time, commercial interests were moving to leverage the holiday for all it was worth.  Store displays are now put up as much as two months in advance and even though there has been some consumer backlash over this, they don’t seem to care that much.

I thought about all these points as I attended the plays I mentioned up above.

Christmas Carol is of course the original story about someone who has disconnected from the holiday.  Scrooge had consciously made a decision to set himself apart from humanity.  The spirits show him that this was not always the case and that he still had time to fix this condition.

12 dates of Christmas was a story about a woman who loses her fiance at Thanksgiving time and for the next 12 months has disastrous dates with various men.  She reflects on how “family centered” that the holidays can be and how single people can feel ostracized around the holiday season.

Ho ho Humbug 2.0 was the most poignant of the three.  A writer, that hates the holidays, needs a temporary job to make his rent and by accident winds up playing a store Santa Claus.  Through some soliloquies the writer explains that even as a child he had never connected to Christmas and that he felt that this job was a farce.

As the play progresses and he interacts with his co-workers and with the customers, he comes to see that Christmas means so much more than the commercialism, the decorations and customs, and even the religious aspect.  Christmas had a distinct meaning to everyone he met.  In the end he doesn’t embrace all the aspects of the holiday but he comes to find a way that he can celebrate the season and make it his own.

I think that last point is the most important.  I see some people decrying the holidays as being too commercial, too religious, too superficial.  But then I look around at people from other parts of the world cheerfully celebrating the holiday and pretty much just ignoring the bits that they don’t like or understand.

For example, Christmas is huge in Japan for the gifting aspect.  Not many Christians there.  I know some Jewish families that put up Christmas trees and focus in on the gift giving and celebration aspects.  Last year I was on vacation in the tropics at this time of year and I saw some of the locals decorating their hut with a Christmas tree.

I guess what I am trying to say is that you need to make the holiday your own in order to enjoy it.  Most people enjoy the season out of habit.  But for those that find the season to be a chore or a bother, I think that if you look more closely that there is something there for you to enjoy as well.

 

Merry Christmas

Posted in: Christmas, consumerism, culture, current events, holidays, Houston, life in general, pop culture, theater, thought , Tagged: ,

Birthday lessons

July 5, 2015 6:57 AM , Leave a Comment ,

We celebrated America’s 239th birthday yesterday.  To most people it’s a chance to get off work and relax. Most of the population doesn’t sit back to consider the declaration of independence or the revolutionary war or the impact and meaning of these to their lives.

The few people who are paid to do this, social commenters, political writers, and those that make a living speculating about such things will usually crank out the same series of articles every year.  Either the founding fathers were God-fearing capitalist patriots trying to forge a new form of government in a howling wilderness or they were atheist, proto-marxists throwing off the shackles of oppression and  creating universal suffrage for all.  Most of the written pieces fall somewhere along this continuum with some detours delving into the issues of women’s suffrage or slavery. Depending on what websites you visit you will see one opinion voiced more than the other.

Of course not one of these views is wholly correct.  The founding fathers were a mixed lot of idealists and scoundrels, laissez faire capitalists and anarchists, land owning gentry and yeoman farmers, church elders and worldly men.  Each group had its own agenda and reasons as to why they wanted to break away from London’s control and the only thing they had in common was a realization that they would need each other’s support to achieve independence.

One thing that they all recognized however was the need to do something new and radical.  To post a logical declaration of grievances against their existing government and provide a sort of logical proof for the need to break away and to form a new government of their own.

I think that has been a vital part of the American character since before the start.  The urge and ability to try something new and not shy away from it just because it wasn’t something that had been done before.  Of course innovation and new thinking can occur anywhere in the world and at any time in history but I think it’s rare that it has ever been so widely accepted as it was in the early American era by such a large population.

I think it was a side effect of the excitement of being part of a new nation in a new land that allowed people the freedom and flexibility to think about new forms of government, the willingness to gamble on new ventures, the acceptance of new technologies, that sense that over time the nation would “improve” itself and that technology would leverage us all into a new golden age.

I find that somewhere along the way we lost that vital spirit.  Perhaps as early as the late 19th century but certainly after World War II.  We went from being a nation excited and curious about the possibilities and challenges of the future to being a nation in love with a past that for the most part didn’t exist in one way or another.  From being excited at the prospect of change and new thinking to being terrified of the idea and demanding that we stay in a social and mental limbo.  From pulling together in common cause to blaming each other for past and current woes.

Rather than trying to solve situations to find the maximum benefit for all of us we have balkanized our populations into competing and often hostile camps that could maybe pull together and benefit each other but for the most part practice mutual antagonism as a sport.

If we continue on our current route I am certain that we will not see another 239 years.  I don’t see us going past another 100 years.  Either our own inertial forces will rip us apart or competing nation states will begin using our confusion against us and will feast on our self-made misery.

We should respect the past and learn from our mistakes and follies if at the very least to honor the sacrifices of those that came before us.  But we should also remember that they made those sacrifices not for us to stay in the past but to progress forward and up into a better tomorrow.

 

Posted in: birthdays, culture, current events, holidays, life in general, myths, politics, speculation, thought

Discussions that we should have but we’re not having

June 9, 2015 6:46 AM , Leave a Comment ,

I rarely watch TV anymore.  I don’t find all that much that excites my intellect or that is thought provoking or that I can respect.  I find the opposite to be true.  I feel that most television programming is an insult to the viewing public.

I find most programming to be a waste of time.  Most programs pander to the lowest common denominator, sex and violence.  They rehash or rework tired old ideas and concepts and expect the viewing public to not notice that the plot lines are painfully and ridiculously predictable.  But what I find most disturbing about television is how it serves as an electronic anesthetic and distraction for the public when real issues come up that need to be discussed.

The viewing public would much prefer to pay attention to the most vapid and banal television shows rather than to become informed and or take action on matters which direct or indirectly affect them.  Matters which they very much need to voice their opinions, yet they don’t.

So it’s worth noting when a program comes on that at the very least brings some of these topics up and captures the public imagination in an entertaining yet informative format.  The program that I am thinking about is Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

Episode dealing with Net Neutrality

For those that don’t know, John Oliver is a British comedian that emigrated to the states and began writing material for comedy shows like The Daily Show with John Stewart. After a successful run at the Daily Show he decided to try his hand at his own news oriented comedy show on HBO.

The results have been significant.  Not only is the show extremely popular but several of the topics that he has covered have been given closer scrutiny by mainline news organizations and his efforts have gone viral on social media and have arguably helped promote some changes in some contemporary topics.

Oliver has covered topics such as the above mentioned Net Neutrality, FIFA, the wealth gap in America, police militarization, and the prevalence of Sugar in the American diet.

Now, I don’t happen to agree with everything he does.  I don’t agree with all his view points, as a comedian he tends to frame the debates in humorous ways, and he doesn’t cover all the topics that I wish he would but I have to give him high marks and praise for bringing these topics to light and giving them the attention that they are due.

I think that in an age where too often television executives don’t want to bother with sophisticated or thought-provoking television shows and would rather just distract the public, that we need to give praise and promote shows that at least encourage the public to think and start important conversations about topics that affect us all.

Posted in: communication, culture, current events, life in general, politics, review, television, thought

The roots of corruption

June 5, 2015 7:06 AM , Leave a Comment ,

One of the big news stories currently being discussed is the investigation into charges of corruption at the world soccer federation (FIFA).  Several high-ranking members of that organization have been arrested and the head of FIFA has been forced to resign as a consequence of the controversy.  Not just minor little thefts or petty little bribes but mind-boggling huge bribes and corrupt practices that go beyond the pale.

Ordinary people like myself have to wonder at the culture that engendered and possibly even encouraged this type of corrupt practices to flourish.  How could this have happened?  Where were the safeguards and monitors that should have prevented this?  Even the basic tenets of standards and good practices seem to be missing here.

A blog that I recently read sheds some light on this.  Two of the points raised in this blog seem to be pertinent here.

Firstly, there seems to have been a culture within FIFA that not only tolerated but almost encouraged the corrupt practices that took place within the organization.  Bribery seems to have been expected not only by the perpetrators but also by the members of FIFA who seem to have accepted handing out bribes to officials as part of the costs of doing business with FIFA.

Secondly, a slow or even non-existent judicial process that sought to either stifle or shut down any sort of investigation and punishment of corruption with regards to these officials.  Corruption at FIFA has been a sort of open secret for years yet no one around the world and certainly not within FIFA sought to do anything about it due to the fact that no sanctions would ever be taken at all.

A third point that wasn’t in the blog but I feel also contributed to this problem is FIFA’s success.  Being the world’s largest sport federation and creating such a wildly popular sporting event such as the world cup I think gave FIFA officials the sense that they could do no wrong and that they were above the law.  Over time their excesses have grown and grown to the point that they have become inexcusable and impossible to overlook.

One has to wonder about other large institutions like governments, businesses, and non-governmental organizations and ponder which of these may be hiding corrupt practices behind a veneer or infallibility or success.

How can reformers or critics point out these excesses without fear of reprisal and with the hope that change will take place? How can those within an organization spot these corrupt practices as they take place and take steps to curtail them before they bloom?

 

Posted in: business, current events, ideas, life in general, speculation, sports, standards and practices, thought

Living within our means

April 30, 2015 7:04 AM , Leave a Comment ,

I’ve been doing a lot with my personal finances in the last few months.  Included in this was the purchase of a new car.  Something that I undeniably need living in Houston but yet some would argue I could have gotten something more pedestrian, less flashy, and more modest.  Some have asked if it is something that I can afford.

To which the answer is yes.  This was something that I’ve been thinking about for over a year and the numbers do make sense.  Now, I could have gotten something more modest, true but the cost difference really wasn’t going to be that great and I do feel that I got quite a bit for my money.  So I still feel that this was a good bargain for me.

Nevertheless these are valid concerns.  In my lifetime I’ve seen how quickly people can get in trouble with easy credit and overspending.  When I was in school the message boards were crammed with credit card applications for students to fill out and even though most students either didn’t work or worked part-time jobs they got ridiculously high credit lines.  Of course within a month or two these kids got into some real financial problems that took years to clear up.

But that’s just symptomatic of our culture or even our civilization as a whole.  We like to push the limits to the extreme and even break the limits till we get into trouble with not just money but resources, living space, and population size.

Take California for example.  The golden state with promises of endless farmlands carved out of the desert, green suburbs without end, and abundant, cheap water hauled from hundreds of miles away. What happens when the waters fail to come year after year?  The answer is the tragedy that’s slowly unfolding right now and affects not just millions of Californians but millions of people across the country and the world that depend on the produce grown there.

What will happen to that population?  They won’t just dry up and blow away.  We’ll soon see them in our neighborhoods looking for work and sharing our resources.  Problems that might have been sidestepped if we had not insisted on trying to squeeze every last resource out of a desert that wasn’t ready to take so many people in the first place.

California will heal but it will take a long time.  My question is when it heals and the rain cycle is restored will we go back and make the same mistakes again or will we learn and not try to live past the capacity of the land?

Posted in: consumerism, current events, economy, energy, environment, future, life in general, technology, thought, weather

Taking what’s offered

March 11, 2015 6:59 AM , Leave a Comment ,

Life has been hectic this year.  Along with the stresses of work and trying to get some side projects going, I have some family responsibilities to tend to and on top of that a cold laid me low for about a week.  With all that going on, I have hardly had any time to relax and enjoy life.

Making plans with friends has been fairly difficult as in some cases I’ve had no certainty when I would have time to relax or if I would have time to relax.  As a consequence I’ve had to make the most of what time I did have to relax.

Programs from some plays that I've recently attended.

Programs from some plays that I’ve recently attended.

One thing that I’ve been relying on lately has been Houston’s outstanding theater scene.  Ranging from off broadway touring companies to small venues to amateur dinner theater, we are extraordinarily blessed with a lot of acting talent in this town.

The nice thing about the local theater scene is that it is usually fairly easy to get tickets, they are rarely sold out.  The theaters are usually fairly small so even the “cheap seats” are good seats.  The acting and production values of the local troops are fairly high so you get more than you pay for.  Lastly, most theater companies have online ticket sales so I can usually book a seat just hours before a performance.

Comparing this to movies?  In some ways better and in some ways not as good but I would not say worse.  I mean with movies of course you can be totally immersed in the story world.  It’s all very visual and the story is all there to see.  With plays you have to use some imagination.  Even the most lavish stage props and backgrounds won’t look totally real.  But with a live human actor right in front of you speaking the lines and instilling the lines with emotion you somehow get more into the story than you would with a movie. Difficult to explain unless you’ve been to one of these plays.

For me at least these plays have helped take the edge off life lately and have given me a bit of a release on those days that life seems to be ganging up on me.

If you ever need to take the edge off or if you are just curious, I would highly recommend it.

 

Posted in: activities, culture, current events, entertainment, Houston, theater

The Rodeo and the new Houston

March 9, 2015 5:50 PM , Leave a Comment ,

Houston has been struggling hard for the last few years to shed its “hick” and “cowboy” labels and take its place as a cosmopolitan city that it is and as a nexus for several different cultures to mix and mingle.  Yet at its core it still retains some of that wild west persona.

This becomes extremely evident at the end of February and in early March when the Houston Livestock show and Rodeo takes place.  The Rodeo was and is a celebration of Houston’s agricultural and ranching ties.  A throwback to the days when cattle trails wound their way up and down the state and more people worked in and around Houston in the cattle and livestock industries.

For generations, Houston kids could go downtown with their families and watch goggle eyed as the cowboys rode in a parade in their western finery and marching bands played and all manner of floats and displays rolled past.  They could then go to the Rodeo and look at the animals and talk to the cowboys and just take in the country culture.

Eventually music acts were added to the Rodeo.  Some of the music isn’t even country music and truthfully the musical acts are now a big part of the Rodeo.  In fact for some that’s all that the Rodeo represents to them.  I think without the music the Rodeo itself would have been much diminished and would not be having record crowds.

As it stands now the Rodeo is an integral part of the Houston experience.  Something that can really be only found here.  I think that it’s a positive for Houston.  As much as I would like to see Houston “grow up” and become more worldly, to have more culture, to be thought of as a first rung city (and it is, I admit it we’ve done amazing things in the last 20 years), I still want it to retain some of its own character.

I don’t want us to become a clone of one of the eastern cities, or another Los Angeles.  I want us to become our own city.  Incorporate the best aspects of other cities, add in the valuable contributions of our large immigrant populations from all over the world, but retain something of what Houston was.

If we can do all those things we can build a city that people will want to come and see, a city that others will want to emulate.  Part of that process is embracing events like the Rodeo and helping it flourish.  Events like this give us something special and point to as uniquely Houstonian.

Posted in: activities, Astrodome, culture, current events, Houston, life in general

How late is it?

January 26, 2015 6:32 AM , Leave a Comment ,

Last week a relic from a past age made its presence felt once again.  The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS) moved the doomsday clock forward to 3 minutes before midnight.  For those too young to remember the cold war, the BAS, first introduced the Doomsday Clock in 1947 as a way to inform the public of their belief of how close to a global disaster that we were at.

My watch, set nowhere near to Doomsday.

My watch, set nowhere near to Doomsday.

Over the decades the Doomsday Clock has moved forward or backwards depending on the combined opinions of the BAS governing board primarily with regards to the Cold war.  Recently however the BAS has expanded its scope to include such things as terrorism and global warming as possible factors that may lead to a global disaster.

I have to wonder however if the Doomsday Clock is still relevant or even all that accurate.  The governing board of the BAS has stated that the clock is not meant to track all the everyday ups and downs of the world situation but meant to track overall trends.  Not so much a clock but maybe a barometer or perhaps even a farmer’s almanac of doom.

The Clock has two problems.  Firstly, the global situation can change so quickly sometimes.  Sometimes these changes are substantial and the Clock misses these.  I know that they want to predict the overall threat of a global disaster occurring but minimizing or even disregarding these changes makes the clock less accurate.

Secondly the Clock has an image problem.  The general public has become somewhat immune to the Clock’s dire predictions over the years and announcements from the BAS are treated as pretty blasé and unimportant.

If the BAS intends the Clock to be more impactful, then they have to announce the meetings to change the time beforehand and make the deliberations public to let the general population know what they are thinking.

Short little notes like the ones that they currently release cause a flurry of news activity for a few days or weeks but overall they do nothing to affect change.

Really if they intend the Clock to mean anything then they need to change the way that they present the information to the public.

Posted in: current events, politics, science, thought

Charlie

January 12, 2015 6:22 AM , Leave a Comment ,

It bears discussing because the whole Charlie Hebdo attack opens up a whole series of issues and questions concerning our support of free speech, the necessary steps to provide security for citizens of a democratic state, and just how we plan to balance the two.  I don’t propose to solve anything in this post just to raise some questions and maybe spark some conversation.

I deliberately said “we” up above as I think it’s understood that the attack on this small newspaper in France is really more than just an attack on a provocative publication in another country.  The attack was meant to do more than just murder a few reporters and editors.  The attack was an attempt to muzzle free expression and to dictate what could and could not be published.

In that aspect I think the attack largely failed.  The feedback and public outrage over the past couple of days has if anything strengthened the convictions of most of the public and the publishing world to continue freely publishing whatever they want in whatever manner that they want.

Some argue that Charlie Hebdo brought this upon themselves by not moderating or minding who they offended.  But honestly that’s part of the point of such publications.  They exist to elicit a reaction, to bring up a mirror, perhaps a warped mirror, to a situation and ask the public at large to look and discuss.

Charlie Hebdo is an extreme case of course but they act as outliers for mainstream publications that print less provocative material and who would be the next targets of terrorists if the Charlies of the world did not exist.  I don’t like everything that Charlie Hebdo publishes.  I’m not a regular reader but I’ve found some of the things that they have published to be vulgar and offensive.  But it is in guaranteeing their right to exist and to work that we safeguard the right of the rest of the news media to operate.

The attacks may have had some negative effects.  The security agencies in the West will look at this and pronounce that this perfectly illustrates why they need to have more latitude in how they deal with the general population and that personal liberties concerns have to become secondary at least “temporarily” while the terrorist threat is sorted out.

Unfortunately temporary measures seem to have a way of morphing into permanent measures with a disturbing regularity.  I can still barely remember accompanying a friend at an airport while she waited for her flight and seeing her to the very gate before she left.  All I had to do was pass through a very basic metal detector.  Nowadays I couldn’t even go through that metal detector without a valid airline ticket and picture ID.  It will certainly be interesting to see how the security apparatus tries to use this incident in the next year and how far the public will let them go.

An even less savory aspect of this whole mess is how it will affect the religious and ethnic minorities in the West.  People are tired of terrorism and war.  Incidents like this work well for hate mongers and bigots that want to restrict immigration and curve discussions between radically different groups of people.  These hate mongers will inevitably point to something like this and say “See, this is what happens when we open up our borders.”

But I think the counter argument to this is “see, this is what happens when we close our minds, when we stop empathizing with our fellow human beings in other parts of the world and treat them as different people to be feared.”  More communication, more discussion, more freedom is what is ultimately needed here.  Not less.

We cannot and should not let incidents like this close off our minds and make us live in fear of our fellow human beings.  The only way we can solve problems like terrorism is by opening ourselves up to others.

 

Posted in: current events, thought

alternate sources of news and information

September 4, 2014 6:38 AM , Leave a Comment ,

[Author’s note:  This is part of a writing challenge that Leslie Farnsworth issued.  We will both write about the same subject and compare notes later on.  She wrote her version on the 3rd of September, 2014.  If you get a chance head on over to her blog at www.lesliefarnsworth.com and read not just her version of this topic but all of her postings.  They are thought-provoking and well written articles and she loves to discuss the topics with her readers.]

 

I heard about 9/11 online.  I was in an online chat room at the time when someone typed in that a plane had struck the first tower.  I guess that make’s me a bit of a cultural cliché.  Part of a generation that matured alongside with the internet.  If I had not had internet access I might have not found out till I drove home in the afternoon.

My experience with alternate news sources isn’t just confined to this one example.  I have been searching out unconventional news sources since my college days.

But why turn to alternate sources of news if we have such a robust news industry out there?  Firstly, precisely for that reason.  It is in fact an industry.  The days that news reporting was strictly just about presenting facts are long past.  News agencies and newspapers are owned entities.  They have their owner’s slant stamped on everything that they produce.  Even if they don’t have a particular slant, they have an obligation to be a money-making organization and that means entertaining their subscribers.  Just as much entertainment as it is information and this tends to tinge news.

Another reason to check alternate news sources is embodied in a quote from the character Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse.  When asked how he knew so much about communism Jeeves replied “It’s good to know what tune the devil is playing.”  Meaning of course that if you don’t know what arguments that someone with an opposing view holds that you would not be able to counter them.  If you stick to main line news sources then you will find that your world view is going to be somewhat narrow and that you’re going to be missing out on a lot of things.

So where to find those alternate sources of news?

Well the first and best place is going to be with those people around you that you know.  Not necessarily your best friends but maybe your casual acquaintances.  Those folks that have radically different life experiences.  They can view the same event as you do in a different light and can guide you to resources that you might not know about.  I know people from all shades of the political spectrum, from different religions, and economic groups.  They all have opinions and valuable input to provide.

Next would be to step out of your comfort zone and actively seek out publications and websites you would not normally look over.  I usually don’t have interest in things like fitness or fashion magazines but through them I’ve read articles on politics, technology, and social issues covered from new perspectives.  Sometimes they reinforce my beliefs, sometimes they make me question them.

The last source of information is to be your own reporter.  You may have a unique question that no one else has ever asked and maybe no one knows who or what to ask.  It’s up to you to dig out the truth.  Talk to people who normally don’t talk to strangers.  Request information that isn’t normally requested.  Your own patience and will to find the real story is your only limitation.

I find that going the extra mile and finding things out for myself rather than relying on the word of others usually leads to getting a much more precise and detailed picture of what’s happening in the world.

Posted in: communication, current events, news