A Reply To A Facebook Slander

I find myself in a bit of a kerfuffle this morning as I read my Facebook page. Last night’s episode of Downton Abbey contained a dramatic plot twist that sent my household into fevered weeping and gnashing of teeth. I then went on Facebook to declare:

“ Dunnevant house in mourning over tonight’s episode of Downton Abbey. Why couldn’t it have been Edith??”

The comment box is now alive with complaints and accusations that I was guilty of spoiling the show for those who hadn’t yet watched. My own nephew insisting that I had posted a “spoiler”, with my niece piling on her frustration. The only person fair-minded enough to come to my defense was my daughter’s boyfriend, proving that he has mastered the art of the suck-up. In my defense, I will only point out the merely obvious fact that I gave away exactly NOTHING about last night’s episode. A closer examination of my post will exonerate me.

First of all, the fact that I declared my house “ in mourning “ was intentionally vague since it could have meant a number of things. Perhaps the Earl of Grantham had lost Matthew’s new money investing in Tulip futures, perhaps it was revealed that Mr. Bates was in fact a murderer and poor Anna was sent into despair, or perhaps the cable went out in the middle of the episode. “ In mourning “ cannot possibly be considered a spoiler by any fair-minded person.

Then I asked a rather innocuous question, “ why couldn’t it have been Edith?”. Again, I fail to see why this simple question is being vilified. It could have meant many things:

1. Why couldn’t it have been Edith…who was caught smoking pot with O’brien and Thomas?

2. Why couldn’t it have been Edith… who tripped over Carson’s gigantic feet and face-planted in the gravel driveway?

#. Why couldn’t it have been Edith… who started the food fight at dinner by tossing the kidney pie at the Dowager Countess?

　

The simple fact is that my status update gave away nothing, and my detractors owe me an apology. Besides, don’t we have bigger concerns about Downton? Shouldn’t our real worry be whether or not Julian Fellowes intends to insert a homosexual plot line into season 4? Could anything do more to disturb our Sunday night bliss than the wretched sight of Thomas and the new guy in bed?

Come on people. Let’s keep our eye on the ball here!

Where Has All The Music Gone?

My wife and I had a fascinating conversation last night about theme music for television shows. People of a certain age who can’t remember what we had for dinner last night can nonetheless recall with phonographic certainty the theme song from every television show we ever watched as kids. Its quite remarkable, really. On the ride home from taking dinner to Dad’s I would say the name of a TV show from our youth and within 10 seconds one of us would belt out the theme. If the song happened to have words, we knew them all, this despite the fact that neither of us have actually seen those shows in 30 years.

Ok, here’s a test. I have listed below several shows that came up in our discussion. If you were born between the years 1950 and 1965, take this test. How many of these theme songs can you remember, words included within thirty seconds of reading the names without the aid of Google?

1. I Love Lucy

2. The Dick Van Dyke Show

3. Beverly Hillbillies

4. Gilligan’s Island

5. Bonanza

5. The Brady Bunch

6. Hawaii Five-0

7. Gomer Pyle

8. Hogan’s Heroes

9. Sanford and Son

10. Happy Days

11. Andy Griffith

12. The Wild Wild West

　

I was a perfect 12 for 12. When was the last time I saw an episode of the Dick Van Dyke show? Oh, I would say 35 years, and yet I remember like it was yesterday old Dick coming home from work, messing with his tie and tripping over that stupid ottoman during the opening music. Amazing.

What started this conversation was our shared love of the theme song from Parenthood. We always DVR that show, so we can fast forward through the commercials, the show flows so much better that way. The odd thing is, when the theme song comes on, we never fast forward, never once. We listen to Bob Dylan’s terrible voice bark out the incredibly appropriate lyrics to “Forever Young”. We watch the beautiful scene there in the Braverman back yard unfold for the 60^th time, the soft string of lights hanging over the long picnic table in their back yard, the laughter coming from each member of the family. We see the grandchildren when they were younger, we watch them pass around the food, we envy them briefly for living in a State where this sort of occasion can happen 365 days out of the year. We see that clip and we hear that music and it reminds us of how marvelous it is to be a part of such a family, to share this life with brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, cousins, nephews and nieces. To see that clip and hear that music is to be reminded of why it is that we settled down to start a family in the first place.

For the most part, television shows have dropped the theme song, replacing it with bumper music, or in the case of Two and a Half Men, these stirring lyrics…”Men men men men men men men men …..” Someone suggested that since shows don’t last very long nowadays, maybe they don’t want to go to the expense of a fancy song. Don’t these producers understand the power of music?? What three shows over the last fifteen to twenty years have been the most successful? Cheers, Friends, and Frazier. All three with forever remembered theme music that people will be humming in their heads fifty years from now.

Bring back the music, Hollywood.

Resolution Checkup

At the beginning of this year I wrote about my plan for 2013. Primarily, it was about striving to live in the moment, neither obsessing over yesterday’s mistakes or worrying about tomorrow’s problems, but simply living all in, in the moment. As January winds down, its time to access my progress. Unfortunately, to do so would require me to obsess over yesterday’s failures so,…just kidding.

The first book I read this year was an autobiography of the quirky knuckleball pitcher from the New York Mets, R.A. Dickey. I’ve been fascinated with his story, a journeyman career minor leaguer who finally makes it to the show in his mid thirties then becomes an unhittable 20-6 as a thirty eight year old, practically unheard of in Major League baseball. Well, it turns out this this book wasn’t about baseball at all, rather it was about the amazing story of a guy who overcame the most horrible childhood imaginable, and with the help of an intense faith and otherworldly commitment to excellence manages to become a great pitcher. Along the way he climbs Mt. Kilimanjaro, for the fun and thrill of it. Ironically, one of the keys to his success is his learned talent for living “all in the present”. For Dickey that meant blocking out the two minute old memory of watching a hitter launch one of his pitches 400 feet into the left field stands for a three run homer quickly enough to be totally committed to his next pitch. No small feat. It’s the same with all great athletes. To be great requires an extremely short memory. The golfer who hooks his drive into the water, the quarterback who throws an interception, the point guard who misses a free throw, all have to quickly regain their composure because the game doesn’t end with one mistake, the next opportunity is coming up and they better be clear-headed and focused, not beating themselves up over what happened two minutes ago. Thankfully for the rest of us, life isn’t that dramatic.

The second book I read was Jon Meacham’s amazing biography of Thomas Jefferson, “The Art of Power”. This is the third biography of Jefferson I have read so I’m familiar with the subject, but in the expert hands of this Pulitzer Prize winning writer, he comes alive in new and fascinating ways. What has stuck me in this reading is the sheer intensity of the life Jefferson lived. It’s as if he determined at birth that he was going to wring every last drop of vitality out of his time on earth. He was going to see all that he could possibly see, learn all there was to learn, build all he could build, grow, plant, cultivate, imagine, discover, all while the day was called day. Thomas Jefferson was an architect, a planter, a writer, a philosopher, a musician, a scientist, a botanist, spoke five languages, and managed to serve his country as a Governor, an ambassador, Secretary of State, Vice-President and President. Reading about Jefferson always produces in me a sense of shame at my comparatively meager ambitions. The mere existence of a guy like Jefferson makes it difficult for me to lay on the sofa eating beef jerky, watching ESPN, without debilitating guilt. Thanks, Tom.

The point of all of this is, if one could combine the commitment to the moment of R.A. Dickey with the zest for life of Thomas Jefferson, one could do a lot worse in life. The good news is, so far this year, it’s working for me. I have been largely successful in living in the moment. My problem in the past hasn’t been beating myself up over failures as much as worrying too much about the future. So far, I’ve been able to let go of tomorrow for the most part. Tomorrow will come regardless of the amount of time I devote to it’s planning. For me, it’s not one day at a time, it’s more like one minute at a time.

I have been given much in this life. For reasons unknown to me, God has blessed me with success. Living in the moment with gratitude and wonder seems an appropriate response.

Snow Conspiracy?

They are calling for snow today. “They”, of course, are the weather forecasters on all the local channels, plus the people over at the Weather Channel. As is usually the case, this particular snow storm has been talked about since last week, such is the science of modern meteorology. Effective in 2013, the big shots in the weather world have decided to start naming snow storms like they name hurricanes. This particular storm must not be very menacing because as of this hour it is nameless.

Here in my corner of the cosmos, snow is greeted with a combination of childlike glee and unhinged panic. At the mere mention of snow in a forecast, hordes of west-enders descend on every grocery store west of the Boulevard, gobbling up every loaf of bread and gallon of milk on the shelves. I have long suspected that there was something nefarious about this spectacle. If the Ukrop’s brothers weren’t such fine upstanding Christian men, I might think that perhaps money was changing hands between the grocery titans and the weather forecasters in town.

Bobby Ukrop: Hey Jim. Uh, listen, we’ve had a pretty slow January over here, and we’re in a bit of a bind since we’re way overstocked on bread and milk. I was wondering if you could help us out.

Jim Duncan: Bobby, I’m surprised at you! You think you can just call here and ask me to cook up a phony snow forecast just so you can move some groceries?! I am a professional meteorologists for God’s sake, I have a reputation to think about, I have..

Bobby Ukrop: I’ll give you $25000 and a life long supply of White House rolls.

Jim Duncan: Done.

　

With the explosion of the internet in recent years, Richmond weather geeks have a new place to go for wild weather rumors. There’s this guy on Facebook with the initials DT. He runs some sort of weather consulting business for farmers and commodity traders. For 9 months of the year he labors in obscurity, but when winter arrives, he becomes a rock star. His Facebook page blows up. He’s famous for making outlandish forecasts of blizzards when the local TV guys are calling for a dusting. Like the proverbial broken clock who is at least right twice a day, DT has built his reputation on being famously right twice…three years ago. Ever since then people have considered him the go-to guy for snow. I hear him on the radio whenever snow is in the forecast, and more often than not he’s explaining why the local TV weather people are fools. It doesn’t seem to matter how often he’s fabulously wrong because he was the guy three years ago who nailed those two storms that nobody else saw coming. What a gig!

Well, I’m prepared for whatever comes our way today. There’s milk in the fridge, bread in the pantry, and as long as we don’t lose our internet connection, lots of great entertainment on DT’s Facebook page.

Dunnistan's First International Crisis

It has been brought to my attention that while the government of Dunnistan is more than adequately staffed with women, there is a disturbing lack of ethnic diversity, in point of fact, the number of minorities in my administration equals zero, about as undiversified as you can get.

While it certainly was not my intention to present to the world a monochromatic face, as it were, never let it be said that Dunnistan is not sensitive to politically correct notions of fairness and diversity. Some have suggested that Dunnistan’s lack of minority representation reveals latent racism. Nothing could be further from the truth. To assuage the concerns of the global community, I hereby announce the following appointments.

Like all other central governments in the world, mine is constantly expanding, whether it needs to or not. New employment opportunities sprout like daffodils in the spring here in Dunnistan. Just yesterday for example, it was pointed out to me that we have no liaison to the Asian community. It fact we have no liaison to any community and didn’t even know one was needed until I read in “Nation-Building For Dummies” that to get along in the modern world, it is vital to reach out to all corners of the globe to seek out alliances. This revelation has presented me with a golden opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. My sister-in-law, Rizaline happens to be Fillipino, and about as friendly and kind as any citizen of Dunnistan. She will be a perfect Ambassador at Large. In addition, her son, my nephew Sean, is half Fillipino, so his appointment to the newly minted position of Secretary of Rock and Roll and Brightly Colored Shoes should be well-received by the world diversity police. I am also considering creating a job for my Niece’s husband, Ruaridh, since he’s originally from Scotland. But I must first get a ruling from the United Nations as to whether he qualifies as a minority. If so, then Dunnistan will have minorities in 3 of the 11 positions filled so far, a sparkling minority representation of 27%!!

This founding father business if exhausting.

The Speech

As promised, I didn’t watch any of the festivities yesterday. I spent quite a productive day at work, a very good thing, but as a patriot I felt compelled to at least find a copy of the speech and read it. So I did. Google is a wonderful thing.

President Obama has been elected twice now. He is the clear choice of a majority of my fellow citizens. He is entitled to his views and is free to push his agenda as he sees fit. Much of his speech featured soaring rhetoric, the kind that he is known for. Naturally I disagreed with much, though not all of it. However, two lines captured my attention. They jumped off the page and attacked me. Seldom have I heard such fabulous nonsense come from the mouth of a President, any President.

“ The commitments we make to each other – through Medicare, and Medicaid, and Social Security – these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great.”

Where to begin? Ever since I have been a working adult I have been taxed 6.2% of my pay for Social Security and 1.35% for Medicare. The reason I have been charged this tax is precisely because these programs were designed NOT as welfare, but rather a benefit that citizens pay for. The reasoning has always been, from Otto Von Bismarck forward that government programs of assistance must never be viewed as entitlements by the citizen because if they were it would produce sloth and freeloading. Thus, the citizen pays in to the system and “earns” the benefits he later receives. My Social Security benefit is not a “commitment” I have made with my fellow citizen, it is a commitment that my government has made with me. I pay in to the system, and the government promises to not screw around with my contributions and further promises to pay me when the time comes for me to collect. Because of government malfeasance over the last 50 years, these programs have morphed into gigantic unfunded liabilities and with all due respect they are indeed “sapping our initiative” not to mention our national bank account. In thirty five years time by every prediction model used by either political party, the entire federal budget will be spent paying for these three programs and the interest on our national debt. If that doesn’t “sap our initiative”, what on earth will?

“ No single person can train all the math and science teachers we’ll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores. Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation, and one people.”

　

What the hell is he talking about? I have never met a single, solitary soul who believes that “ a single person” can do any of these things! This is why people have banded together for, oh, four thousand years of recorded history, to do things as a group that cannot be done individually. To the President, there apparently are only two options when confronting problems…”one single person” or a huge, leviathan government. Has he never heard of civil society? Is he unfamiliar with local associations like churches, charities, Kiwanis clubs, PTA’s? Must every social ill be the soul province of Washington? This is the Life of Julia writ large. That little cartoon put out by his campaign depicted a single woman from birth to death relying totally on a benevolent government at every step of her life as if she had absolutely no where else to go. In the President’s view of our country, the government can and should be the fount of all solutions. The problem is, we are stone cold broke, and our benevolence comes at a cost. No where in his address did the President hazard a plan for the how this great society plans to pay for any of this. All we got from this speech was…bad things happen in life, and your government is going to be here to make everything better, no matter how much money it takes.

OK. Good luck with that.

An Inaugural Lament

Today is Inauguration Day. I won’t watch, since I’ll be at work, but I probably should. I did watch last time. I watched Jimmy Carter’s, and the first Ronald Reagan one, and the first W. one I think, so I have a spotty record.

Today is also Martin Luther King Day, and I won’t be participating in any memorial activities honoring him either. I have nothing against MLK, just as I have nothing against George Washington or Abraham Lincoln when I completely ignore them on President’s Day. See, since I’m not a teacher, or a government employee, and since I don’t work for a bank or the Post Office, I don’t get the day off with pay. I’m one of those greedy evil guys you hear about on the news who works for himself, and let me tell you, my boss is a real jerk.

Don’t misunderstand, owning your own business has it’s benefits. You never have to ask for a raise, never have to ask for time off, never have to worry about getting fired. I’ve never once in 30 years been sent home for being inappropriately dressed. So, I’ve got those things going for me.

But being your own boss has its drawbacks. I have no one to blame for my failures. I don’t have sick pay. I’ve never taken a paid vacation. I have to provide my own health insurance, and it’s terrible. There’s no employer’s contribution to my retirement plan, and I have to pay both halves of my Social Security tax. But, the worst part is that I have to be a success every single week or there’s no paycheck. Well, not exactly “no” paycheck, but rather a greatly diminished one. There is no room for failure or even slumps because the effect is immediate. 30 years ago, I traded relative safety and stability for independence and potential. When friends get laid off from their jobs, I think I made the right choice. When I endure a slump and have nothing to pay myself, I’m not so sure. But I made my choice. It’s a free country.

30 years ago, guys like me were celebrated. We were called entrepreneurs, risk takers, the drive-shaft of the engine of commerce. Now we’re vilified as greedy, self centered and unpatriotic, mostly by the men and women who will fill the grandstand behind the President at today’s ceremony, and especially by the President himself. He won reelection largely because there are far too few of “us”, and we are an easy target. Fair enough, it’s a democracy after all. But forgive me if I don’t participate in the festivities today. I’ll be busy trying to make enough money to pay my “fair share”. Trouble is, after paying the Feds on the 15^th, my State on the 27^th, my property taxes, sales taxes, gasoline taxes, licensing fees to all the States where my clients live, business taxes, errors and omissions insurance, and after trying to dig out from under six years of putting my two kids through college, there just isn’t much left. And yet when I look at the sea of faces behind the President on that grandstand today, I will see an average net worth per capita of somewhere around 5 million, and it is these people who derisively call me…rich.

So, I harbor the President no ill will. I wish him every success over the next four years. We could use some success about now. But, no, I won’t be tuned in today. I’m a little busy here.