Postcards From Myself

Yes, I am a huge parrot head. I have been going to Buffett concerts for nearly 30 years now and have been a fan of his music for even longer. Hopefully he will come closer to Charleston, but right now the closest date is in Charlotte, North Carolina. I bought my tickets today. It has been a while since I bought lawn seats, but hey, I can still hang with the lawn crowd!

And while you are at it, please check out my Parrot Head Page. Fins Up!

Here it is! I thought it was about time to tidy up the site with a new theme and a new outlook on life. Please let me know what you think. If you liked the old one better, let me know that too. And if something is broken that I haven’t found yet, I would really appreciate the information.

And yes, I took the header photograph. It is sunrise over Ralston Creek here in Charleston, SC. If you want to see more of that shoot, you can check out my Flickr photo gallery.

Thanks again for your support and feedback.

There was an essay in the “Bookshelf” section of the most recent UU World that tried to be amusing, but ended up troubling me. W. Frederick Wooden’s essay entitled “Why I’m sticking with classics” while noble in defense and even promotion of classic literature, which as a long ago English literature major I love, seemed to go off course and strike a number of bad chords with me. I dislike sending negative feedback, but in this case I felt I must.

The first problem is one that was mentioned in the piece itself. It seems he is doing a lot of his classic reading so that he can rub other people’s noses in it – not because he enjoys the reading or wants to gain the knowledge. He says that when people talk to him about reading the latest pot-boiler, he wants to be able to retort that he is reading great classics instead. Not only is that mighty arrogant, but it is downright obnoxious.

Second, and much more importantly, he basically states that only the classics are worth reading or writing, so no one should even try writing new works now. In fact Wooden says there are “too many bad books already, “ and that “they are driving out the good.” If that is not a defeatist attitude then I don’t know what is! Is this what we are supposed to be telling our children? “Sorry son, Babe Ruth was the greatest player in the game, there is no reason for you to play baseball,” or “sorry dear, Penicillin has already been invented, no reason for you to want to be a researcher.”

Finally, his attitude towards recent religious works is that the current books are “at least statistically likely to be about stuff I already agree with.” Again the hubris astounds me. Assuming that someone agrees with you is just as bad as assuming that people won’t agree with you because they are of a different background. Making assumptions without hearing the other side of the story is exactly what some critics do when they call for banning a movie they have never seen and have no intention of seeing. Ignorance goes both ways.

I do realize that Mr. Wooden’s piece was intended to be humorous – at least I hope that was the intention. But, unfortunately, there is just too much troubling rhetoric in it for me to get to the humor. I would dare say that very often humor is a tarp thrown over the truth, and when we pull back that tarp we uncover the real message. Please let that not be the case here.

Thanks for the great magazine, and sorry for the negative feedback.

Note: This was an email letter I sent to the editors of UU World magazine.

If you are not from the South, you may not have heard the phrase, “Hey y’all, watch this!” Be forewarned. As those of us know down here in the warmer areas of the US, when you hear someone - almost always male - utter that phrase it means two things. First, it means you should get out of the way really quickly. Second, it means you are about to witness an amazing act of outright stupidity. For those of you in Britain who are Top Gear fans, equate it with Jeremy Clarkson asking, “How hard can it be?”

Now I am sure my good friend and neighbor didn’t utter those words since he was in his truck alone, but he might as well have. Why? Because he was messing with his hand gun in his truck, in traffic (and yes he has a license for all that), and proceeded to shoot himself through the hand and leg! To top it off, he then drove himself to the hospital emergency room - in a huge Mac Tool truck!

No matter what you are thinking at this point, my friend isn’t stupid or insane. He is a very stable, over 40, intelligent person. He is a fairly avid hunter so he knows gun safety very well. It was no lack of knowledge or training that caused this. It was simply a lack of using that knowledge and training. I had to ask him, “Why were you messing around and cocking your gun while driving?” Or actually, while stopped at at traffic light. His response? “I don’t really know.” Great! Brilliant!

Actually I am quite glad that he wasn’t hurt worse. He shattered a bone in his hand and took a small chunk out of his leg. He now has some bandages and a bullet in the door to show for it all. And we are all very glad that the bullet stayed in the truck and didn’t travel to other cars, pedestrians, animals, or whatever. A very serious thing and he knows it. But still, it is just so stupid that you are forced to shake your head and laugh. And, of course, not give him back the gun - at least for a while.

Might have to start calling him Dick Cheney.