Esoteric Bowl

I asked Dad if I could borrow his car for the night. I didn’t have any special plans for the evening, but a friend had invited me to come over to her house to hang-out for a while. Dad handed me his keys, then asked when I would be home. By the time my brothers and I were in our teenage years, Dad never told us to be home at a specific time, rather he would ask when we would be home and then expect us to be in the house at that time.

When I arrived at Tammy’s house, she greeted me with that great smile of hers that made her eyes twinkle and shine. I always liked Tammy. She was bright and funny and a bit of a rebel, and she was certain that she was a modern-day witch. We had first met when she was dating a friend of mine, and when that relationship ended we continued our friendship.

The two of us sat outside of her home and talked while her mother peeked out the window at us every so often. Tammy suggested that we go cruising, and soon we were driving around the familiar streets of Kaneohe listening to Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti with no particular destination in mind.

At one point in the drive Tammy pointed to a road, a dirt road, and suggested that we take that path. Unbeknownst to me, the path led into the banana patch. Always willing to please, I took the turn. A few moments after taking that turn, Tammy placed her hand on my thigh. I won’t go as far as to say that it freaked me out, but I never thought of Tammy in that way before. I mean she was beautiful and a friend and a very cool chick, but in my mind she would always be my friend’s ex-girlfriend. The man in me now would know how to handle such a situation, but for the teenage boy that I was, it was all new territory.

I continued to drive. The further I drove, the more we became surrounded by the long stalks of bananas. It was only then that I remembered hearing about The Banana Patch, a secluded place where couples sometimes made out and a place no parent knew about. The music blaring and Tammy’s hand were enough of distraction, but now it was difficult to see on either side of me. Soon I was off the main path and driving over bumpier and bumpier little hills.

And then the car go stuck. The front wheels of the car were slightly in the air while the rear wheels and axle were buried in the soft dirt. Everything that had happened up until this point was quickly forgotten and panic ensued. I had to get this car unstuck. I dug the dirt with my hands. I dug dirt with the tire iron. I pushed the car, I pulled the car. Still, I couldn’t get the car out of the hole that it was in.

The early morning light began to shine and Tammy had to get home. Covered with dirt, I walked her back to town where she called her Dad to pick her up. She suggested that I call my Dad, but I was hopeful that with a little more time I could eventually get the car out. Besides, I certainly didn’t want to face my father and tell him that I got his car stuck in the banana patch.

I walked the long road back to the banana patch and headed towards the car. In the distance I heard a car coming down the old dirt road. Maybe, I thought, the person could help me pull the car out and I could be on my way home. That thought quickly vanished as the car slowly approached and I looked towards the driver and recognized my father’s familiar gaze.

Considering that I had bent the rear axle of his car and that the car had to be towed, Dad was rather cool and understanding about it all. However, for years later whenever I would borrow his car, Dad would always remind me to stay out of the banana patch.

Have a Great Aloha Friday!

Throughout the world there are individuals who feel victimized, who feel that there has been an injustice against them. In many areas of the world there’s no recourse for the individual, and this can magnify into hopelessness. With this hopelessness comes feelings of humiliation, frustration and anger. How individuals respond to their hopelessness often depends on their perspective, and that perspective is largely defined by the individual culture.

Whether we look towards Iraq, Afghanistan, Cuba or any other place in the world, we can see how individuals respond to their hopelessness when justice is not available to them. While this same hopelessness can be found within our own culture, particularly within the inner cities, there still remains a belief that an individual can seek and obtain justice.

Currently on Capitol Hill the US Senate is debating the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (S.397), which would provide gun manufacturers and gun dealers with sweeping immunity from lawsuits. Supporters of the gun liability bill claim the law would put a halt to “frivolous lawsuits” against gun manufactures, yet of the 10 million wrongful death/injury suits filed in US courts from 1993-2003, only 57 were against gun manufactures. Damages paid in gun suits each year is $441,800, excluding unreported confidential settlements.

This bill would not only provide the gun industry with unprecedented protections against individual claims, but it would ban state and federal authorities from filing suit as well. Police officers, federal agents, and citizens killed or injured would have no recourse against dealers or manufactures of guns no matter how libel they are.

In essence, supporters of this bill are saying that they don’t trust the law or the courts or the juries or the judicial process, therefore they will provide a shield from the law for gun dealers and gun manufactures. In seeking to appease the gun lobby, some lawmakers are willing to chip away at the individual right to seek legal recourse. It’s quite telling when lawmakers are willing to put the interests of the gun lobby ahead of the rights of the individual. Without the individual right to pursue justice in a court of law, the individual is left with hopelessness and becomes resentful of law itself. It then becomes only a matter of time before individuals take the law into their own hands.

* “THE BIGGEST LIE YET”

* The Brady Center

I’m walking home when I notice a young woman approaching on the sidewalk. Her face looks familiar, but I can’t recall how I know her. My mind automatically switches to speed-dial, trying desperately to place a name with the face. How do I know her? Did we have a class together? Did we work with each other? Did she and I do the nasty? Think, think!

When we get to about ten feet from each other, she looks up and glances my way. While I anticipated for her to recognize me, she doesn’t. We continue walking in opposite directions and in the moment that we pass each other it dawns on me how I know her. I recognized her from a photo that was posted on her blog. I almost turned and called her name, but decided it was best to let her go.

I heard familiar music. I turned off the sound of the tv to make sure the music was coming from outside. Yes, it was from outside. The melody of the tune meant only one thing; the Ice Cream Man was on my street! It’s been such a long time since he has traveled to my neighborhood.

Sure I’ve got ice cream in the freezer, but this is ice cream from the man himself. Besides, the Ice Cream Man doesn’t just sell ice cream, he sells memories and joy and all that good stuff. I grabbed my wallet and stepped outside the door. I walked in the direction of the music and began to turn the corner of the building when all of a sudden I was blasted in the face with a thick stream of water. The water startled me, and in a spontaneous moment the f-word came out of my mouth.

Seconds after swearing, I saw one of the neighborhood boys standing five feet in front of me holding a big water blaster rifle in his hands with a frightened look on his face. I felt so bad for swearing in front of a child who is no more than eleven years old, and I was sorry for obviously scaring him. I told him that I wasn’t swearing at him, but that I swore because he startled me. He told me that he didn’t mean to shoot me, but he thought I was his friend that he was playing with. I told him that he blasted me real good and we both laughed.

I bought popsicles for myself and for the boy and his friend. I apologized again for swearing, and he graciously assured me that it was alright. “It’s okay,” he said. “I hear it at home all the time.”

Have a Great Aloha Friday!

Several weeks ago on Imus in the Morning on MSNBC, Don Imus was talking with guest Chris Mathews of Hardball fame. During their conversation, Imus attempted to convince Mathews to devote one (1) show to the controversial topic of thimerosal and its connection with autism. Mathews stuttered and squirmed, eventually saying we all have our causes.

I was angry at Mathews and with his ease of pushing the topic under the rug. Sure, he can devote weeks of shows ad nauseam on Swift Boat Veterans or Russell Crowe’s throwing of a cell phone, but he can’t help to shed a little light on thimerosal and its links to speech delays, attention-deficit disorder, hyperactivity and autism. My knee-jerk response was to write an attacking post aimed at the spineless Mathews. However, I let it pass. I had already shared my personal thoughts on the thimerosal-autism connection and there was no sense in repeating myself.

Last month when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote Deadly Immunity, a scathing article published in RollingStone about the link between mercury in vaccines and the dramatic rise in autism amongst children and the massive government cover-up, I felt that finally there was a well-known and respected voice that would be heard on the issue. Kennedy not only has name recognition, but he’s recognized as the country’s most prominent environmental attorney. Surely with Kennedy speaking about the issue the mass media could no longer sweep it under the rug and perhaps it would spark a government investigation.

Obviously, I was wrong. Thus far Kennedy has received similar treatment that reporter David Kirby received after writing Evidence of Harm. Although Kirby’s book is a NY Times bestseller, the network morning shows and cable news programs have refused to book him. According to Kirby, only Don Imus, Jon Stewart, Montel Williams, and a local news station have had him on to discuss his book. While Kennedy too has been on Imus and Stewart’s Daily Show, the mass media has also refused to book him, yet this has not prevented them from knocking Kennedy and dismissing his findings. In response to the media’s reaction, RollingStone editors recently wrote “What is most striking is the lengths to which major media outlets have gone to disparage the story and to calm public fears — even in the face of the questionable science on the subject.”

Yesterday there was a march and rally on Capitol Hill to protest the continued use of mercury preservatives in vaccines given to children and pregnant women. While it was the largest rally to date protesting vaccine risks, with parent organizations joined by physicians and legislators, the march wasn’t covered by the mass media. If it had not been for the media coverage of Tuesday’s suspiciously timed secret press conference held by the CDC to dispute any correlation between mercury in vaccines and the dramatic rise in autism among children, I wouldn’t have known of yesterday’s march at all.

** A 2001 Emory University Study watched ABC, CBS, and NBC in the Atlanta area for one week and found 907 advertisements for over-the-counter drugs and 428 advertisements for prescription drugs.

“If, as the evidence suggests, our public-health authorities knowingly allowed the pharmaceutical industry to poison an entire generation of American children, their actions arguably constitute one of the biggest scandals in the annals of American medicine.” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Excerpt from Deadly Immunity)

Quote from Dr. Boyd Haley, Professor and Chair, Dept. of Chemistry, University of Kentucky and one of the world’s leading authorities on mercury toxicity: “You couldn’t even construct a study that shows thimerosal is safe. It’s just too darn toxic. If you inject thimerosal into an animal, its brain will sicken. If you apply it to living tissue, the cells die. If you put it in a petri dish, the culture dies. Knowing these things, it would be shocking if one could inject it into an infant without causing damage.” (Excerpt from Deadly Immunity)

Related Links:

SafeMinds
Unlocking Autism
National Vaccine Information Center
NoMercury
Moms Against Mercury
Dads Against Mercury

Jude Law is the newest member of the I’m Sorry club. I don’t know why celebrities and public figures feel a need to publicly apologize for being unfaithful, but I suppose it has something to do with marketing. According to reports, Law’s fiancee was shocked to learn of the affair, which is rather amusing considering that she began an affair with Law while he was still married.

I suppose we all know someone who has had an affair while in a relationship. Personally, I’ve never had an affair while in a relationship, but I’ve been in relationships when the other person has had an affair. The first time was when I was twenty years old. I went to visit a mutual friend and when I arrived at the house the friend told me not to go inside. When I asked why, she told me that my girlfriend was in the bedroom with a guy. I could have responded in a number of ways, but I chose to go home instead. I was somewhat surprised that I didn’t feel jealous or hurt by the situation, instead I just shrugged it off. She would later apologize, but still I felt that we should go our separate ways.

The next affair would happen ten years later. The woman and I hadn’t been dating for too long, but the relationship had grown rather quickly. One night she tearfully confessed that she had “cheated” with an old boyfriend. She repeatedly told me how sorry she was and she asked for my forgiveness. In truth, while her confession surprised me, she was far more upset about her action than I was. In short, I told her not to worry about it and we moved on from there.

Being on the receiving end of such apologies feels rather strange, almost as if apologies don’t apply to affairs. I realize that some might take a partner’s affair as an act of betrayal, but I don’t. I’ve always felt that sex is a personal choice, and if someone apologizes to me for having sex, then it enters into control issues that I don’t desire. If you want to have sex with someone, have sex with them. Just protect yourself. And by all means, don’t come asking for forgiveness afterwards.

I’ve never felt a need to have an affair while in a relationship. Again, it comes out of personal choice. The way I see it, there are so many things in life that each of us compromises on, we learn to conveniently bend the rules to fit our own behaviors, and we make far too many concessions on our principles. I decided long ago that remaining faithful is one such principle I would stick to, not so much out of loyalty to another, but for myself.

Take a look at the current movie listings and you’ll find an inordinate amount of remakes and familiar plots from the past. Fantastic Four, The Honeymooners, The Longest Yard, Bewitched, The Amityville Horror, and War of the Worlds are just some that come to mind. There’s also another installment to the Star Wars saga, and Batman returns once again. Land of the Dead has risen for what is promised to be the last of the “Dead” films, and even Herbie the VW Bug is back on the road.

Perhaps this surge of remakes can easily be explained by the movie industry’s tendency to fall back on formulas that have worked in the past. However, this nostalgic pattern extends beyond just movies. Take a look at Amazon’s best-selling fiction and you’ll find Harry Potter reworking his magic, while Bob Woodward is atop the non-fiction list retelling the 30-year tale of the Watergate scandal.

Down on Broadway the current shows are a who’s who list of revivals with Chicago, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Fiddler on the Roof, Glengarry Glen Ross, Hairspray, The Phantom of the Opera, The Producers, Steel Magnolias, Sweet Charity, and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

Nostalgia is also in full force in the music world, with the Rolling Stones on a current world tour. Paul McCartney, Elton John, Santana, Van Morrison, Neil Diamond, Brian Wilson, Crosby Stills and Nash, U2, and Tom Petty head a list of “old-timers” currently touring.

What does this flurry of nostalgia within the culture mean? Is it all just a coincidence? Maybe there’s more to it than just that. Perhaps this nostalgic hunger is a reflection of a wide-ranging cultural longing to escape the present and return to a better time and to what’s familiar. Even the other day I overheard a Bush supporter say, All things considered, Clinton wasn’t so bad after all.