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Us, Baby, Us

Now that we have a political action group called Raging Grannies, I think it's safe to say that I saw an old lady protesting yesterday by the neighborhood B.P. filling station.

White hair in the wind, she displayed an illegible sign, but her sour face and spare hand waving thumb down said it all: "Boycott B.P."

I'll bet the sign said something like:

"Don't buy gas from British Petroleum because their destruction of the Gulf of Mexico demonstrates that they are incompetent at best and evil at worst. If you buy from B.P., you are aiding and abetting this criminal enterprise."

Out of (slight) respect for the lone protester — and because my tank was full — I did not cross her picket point. (Geometrically, a picket point is a picket line comprised of a single picketer.)

But I do not agree with her. I think she's a dope head.

Oh, Go Ahead And Buy Gas At B.P.
First of all, I find it hard to believe — with today's corporate complexity — that the cashier at the local BP Connect & Wild Bean Café gets her paycheck from the same company as the off-shore riggers. And the local filling station surely gets its high-test from every source. And, similarly, any properly captured crude from B.P.'s rigs in the Gulf surely flows through every brand of pump in town.

But that's not my chief beef in the sanctimonious caterwauling for B.P.'s head in a basket.

My argument: B.P. is not ultimately to blame.
Sure, B.P. will probably be destroyed, its brand and balance sheet drowned in what will soon be known as The Black Sea. (Oh, is that name already taken? How about Gulf of Chernobyl?)

But B.P. isn't attacking the environment for the heck of it. All those corporate executives didn't wake up one day and say, "Let's just go get oil, even if the environment suffers."

Sorry, but B.P. is not to blame.

Who is to blame?

I know who is to blame.

I am.

Blame me. I can't even count the number of unnecessary automobile trips I've taken in the past several days.

This morning? For crumpets. Midday? To a museum. Tonight? To a play rehearsal. (There were other trips, less worthy. But modesty forbids.)

Tomorrow? More of the same. Much more.

Sure, they are all meaningful trips, but they are not critical to my survival. They are wholly discretionary.

So I cannot, for one moment, besmirch the oil industry. They are doing my work for me, providing me with fuel for my life and, yes, my lifestyle.

We're addicted. So show some love.
Hearing anyone — anyone who drives a car as freely as I do — complain about the oil industry is like hearing an addict say, "I hate my drug dealer."

Dude, the drug dealer works for you. You hate your drug dealer? Fire her.

Same now. You don't like the cost of gasoline — especially now that the cost of gasoline includes a clearly visible environmental nightmare? Then do something about it.

And don't just declare that we should all not buy gas on Thursday to send a powerful message to the oil industry. The only message is: we're stupid and we will wait to buy our gas on Friday or — better yet for Big Oil — we will fill up a day earlier on Wednesday.

We're addicted. Sure, Big Oil provides a pipeline. But we are at the ultimate end of the pipeline, drinking deeply. Our entire economy — and lifestyle — lives on gasoline.

The Real Meaning Of The Gulf
The Gulfmare seems like a call for true investment in and development of green energy. Of course, any politician who calls for this might be dismissed as an opportunist, but that's just nay-sayers saying nay.

This is the time to change our lives.

(I've got to get closer crumpets.) 

Today's Real Opportunity
Let's think about what feeds our energy use:

• Whenever we turn on a light switch, there is a coal miner on the other end of that wire, earning his livelihood, risking his life — and sometimes losing his life.
• Whenever we run the air conditioning, there is a nuclear power plant on the other end of it, developing radioactive waste for our descendants.
• Whenever we take a unnecessary trip in the car, we are asking a soldier to take another step toward securing our oil supply.
• Even as I type on this keyboard — and as you read this piece — we are indeed complicit in the Gulf.

My goal isn't to make you feel guilty all day and night. Nor is my intention to change my life much. I like my crumpets from whence they come.

And, sure, B.P. should have avoided the spill and should be doing better now with the problem. But let's remember who wants cheap gasoline.

We don't like oil drilling, especially now that it's so dirty.

Ask not for whom the gulf slicks, it slicks for thee.

This Memorial Day
Let us remember those who died on the Deepwater Horizon rig, among the latest people to give their lives for our freedom to burn gasoline:

Jason Anderson, 35, Midfield, Texas; Aaron Dale Burkeen, 37, Philadelphia, Mississippi; Donald Clark, 34, Newellton, Louisiana; Stephen Curtis, 39, Georgetown, Louisiana; Gordon Jones, 28, Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Roy Wyatt Kemp, 27, Jonesville, Louisiana; Karl Klepping, 38, Natchez, Mississippi; Blair Manuel, 56, Eunice, Louisiana; Dewey Revette, 48, State Line, Mississippi; Shane Roshto, 22, Franklin County, Mississippi; and Adam Weise, 24, Yorktown, Texas.

May they rest in peace. May their names long be a blessing to all who knew and loved them.

An Autotelic Life

We've lost a master of life.

Martin Gardner remains an inspiration.
Even his obituary tickles the heart and rings like a wake up call

Here it is, from yesterday's New York Times.

May he be buried in that empty space on the diagram.

As If

I love the Live Life As If exercise.

So today, when I decided to optimize my handheld email thang — but accomplished the opposite, truly messing it up — I decided: "That's just fine. I'm not going to spend any time troubleshooting and fixing it. Rather, I'm going to live life as if I simply can't get email on my handheld thang."

This will only last a couple weeks. 
I'd already ordered another new binky. It's on the way. Then, I will surely revert to too frequent checking of messages.

But, for now — already today — I've noticed that I'm looking up more, seeing what's around me.

It's quite nice. 

Perhaps I'll live life as if for longer. 

A Rose By Any Other Name

Rehearsals are well underway for To Kill A Mockingbird. And, among the many issues with which we must wrestle — beyond stage blocking, memorization, dialect, intention — is the prevalent and dramatic use of the word: "nigger."

Let's Set The Stage
Several weeks ago, our beloved Columbus Metropolitan Library invited me to speak to the annual celebration for their volunteers. 

It's quite a group of people, all standing up — and staffing counters and shelving books — for our award-winning public library system. Director Pat Losinski calculated the sheer value of their contribution in time: it would have been enough to staff a small library all year. It was equivalent of $750,000, making this group one of the largest donors to the library.

But this isn't about them or that.

This is about To Kill A Mockingbird.
The library had asked me to recommend a nice book as a gift for each of the volunteers.

I'd first suggested a tiny pocket book of inspiring aphorisms called The Empty Chair: Finding Hope & Joy - Timeless Wisdom from a Hasidic Master, Rebbe Nachmann of Breslov. But they'd thought this sounded too Jewish (not their phrase) and, frankly, looking at the title now, I had to agree.

So, inviting the volunteers to each pick his or her own gift, I also chose an alternative title: To Kill a Mockingbird. With the play fast approaching, it seemed like a nice opportunity to think about the work — and maybe start shilling for ticket sales. (Save the date: June 24-26 at 8 p.m.; June 27 at 2 p.m.)

Here Was My Plan. (Didn't Happen.)
The plan was for me to talk a little about the theme of volunteering in To Kill A Mockingbird, and then to have a couple volunteers read a part of the script where Atticus Finch talks like a volunteer, during a tenderhearted moment of teaching between Atticus and Scout, his pre-teen daughter.

Of course, Atticus is not quite a volunteer, because he's appointed by the court and is presumably paid for his representation of Tom Robinson. But I think it's like jury duty; the State pays to make it official and cover some expenses, but the work is largely done as a volunteer.

The N-Word Was a Stop Sign.
Before we started, my two volunteers expressed discomfort with the page I'd handed them. Neither wanted to read "nigger" aloud.

Each volunteer offered a look in the eye: "I don't want to say that. I didn't really volunteer for this."

I agreed. We were in a public area. I didn't want the word to ring through the halls of a public library. I didn't want anyone to think that miserable word is at home in the air of such a sacred space.

Since we had already distributed the entire page to everyone in the room, I announced that we had decided not to read the first two paragraphs. We would start on paragraph three, after which the word no longer appeared.

Then I told this story...

The Night Helen Learned To Read
Years ago, before our daughter knew how to read, I would read her to bed each night. It was a wonderful experience.

One evening, while we were reading Huck Finn, Helen exclaimed: "You aren't reading."

"Yes, I am."

"No, you aren't," she argued, pointing to the page. "You didn't read that." She pointed to the word nigger. "Why didn't you read that word?" Clearly she had been scanning the words with me. She had learned to read. This awkward moment was the first proof.

She was right. I had been substituting various phrases — "African-American," "Black" — for the word. Mark Twain would have cringed.

But This Was More Than Political Correctness.
"You're right," I admitted. "I'm not saying that word."

"Why not?" she asked.

"Because it's a word that carries anger, hatred and disrespect," I explained. "I don't want you to hear the word coming from my mouth. I don't want you to have the sound memory of that word on your father's lips."

We'd always told our kids:

It's one thing to hear or read something.
It's quite another to say it aloud.
It's one thing to learn about something.
It's quite another to do it.

I just didn't want to say the word. I don't use it.

What's In A Name?
During the past decade, popular culture has increasingly amplified vulgarity. So is it still a big deal?

I think it is a big deal. I think the word has a history that cannot be ignored, no matter how infamously fashionable.

It's a disgraceful word and not mine to use.

Now We Use The Word On Stage.

The beautiful and brutal script demands we use the word. And it is used very powerfully — within the first 100 words in the play — from the mouths of the hateful mob and, later, differently, from the mouths of the innocent and the wise.

Before rehearsals, I was apprehensive about using the word. And it is especially meaningful hearing the word from the defense table, as it is directed toward my honorable client.

Come hear.

Tickets are selling already at the Available Light box office.

Where do you draw the line? Surely there are words that are too vulgar or profane — and others that are too holy — for you to speak casually.

Get out!

Sunny. Warm. Comfortable in shirtsleeves.

Lush from recent rains and a morning of heavy fog, the day-long dew in the air cools each breath.

Our campus is truly beautiful today.

Students are lounging on the grass -- and throwing Frisbees -- and reading -- and talking on the Oval.

Here's How I Know I Teach
At A Research University
Sometimes, as a liberal arts guy, I feel like a fish out of water at the business school at Ohio State.

(Of course, I felt out of place when I was an MBA student, too.)

I feel like the liberal arts department of the business school. More than a feeling, that's my ambition and lifestyle: to be the fish out of water.

Today, in the elevator, I smiled at another professor and said, "Nice day out there."

His immediate reply: "You can tell based on how many people are outside."

I imagine he's right.

Still, I think that's a funny way of knowing it's a nice day. I think "nice day" is a emotional feeling. This professor has a metric he can trust. I love that.

Getting Out.
What is the definition of rich? Here's one:

To be rich is to be outside whenever -- and only whenever -- you want to be. 

(I'm writing this as I watch my otherwise rich students sit -- inside -- for a midterm exam. Poor for the moment.)

Hope you can get out today. If you want to be out.

Time To Set Some Goals

To my Ohio State creativity students:

Maybe I haven't been asking the right question.

Each year, I ask my creativity students to list their goals. But, well, something isn't happening..

It's not just you. The same thing happened last year. It seems I rarely get the answers I'm seeking.

So I'm going to ask it differently. Right here.

Why Am I Asking?
Anyone old enough to look back sees some missed opportunities.

I sure do.

I don't know where fully formed adults place the blame, but I place mine squarely on the person who never made goals for me. That, awkwardly, is: me.

Somehow, I slid through the Socratic hands of some of the best teachers this world has ever offered. But none of them asked me — at least, in a way that I actually heard — and answered — "What are your goals?"

So I feel obliged to ask you for your goals.
Because your college experience has to be more than education for the sake of enlightenment. It needs to be that and it needs to have some purpose.

You get to choose the purpose.

But I'm making sure that someone — right now, right here — asks you to consider: "For what am I investing all this time, money and effort? What is my goal?"

Are Goals That Important?
Having goals isn't everything. Living a rich, engaged life is more important. Loving others and being loved is more important.

But goals are also important. And they need to be written.

Writing down your goals down doesn't make them happen. But it's funny what happens when you write them down.

What Am I Asking For?
I'm asking for goals in four areas: business, community, family and personal.

How big a goal? Big enough that it's not easy to reach. Big enough that you might not reach it.

Big enough that it answers Ohio State's call to action: Do Something Great.

So What Goals Am I Receiving?
Without betraying any confidences, here is a complete rephrasing of some of the goals I'm receiving:

• Business: generates enough profit that I can afford the life I want.
• Community: respects and seeks me as a leader.
• Family: loves me and each other.
• Personal: ...I want to be happy and play golf.

Happy, shmappy.
Being rich, fertile, loved, and happy is important. I don't want my students to give up on these ideals.

But these aren't the goals I want them to list.

I'm looking for goals that are worthy of a headline. In The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times? Fine. The Columbus Dispatch? Fine. Field & Stream? Fine. Local suburban newspaper? Fine.

Just imagine the headline. That's a good test for your goal. In fact, write your goals as if they are news headlines. (Think: obituary.)

If your goal isn't newsworthy, it's not ambitious and nutritious enough for this assignment.

Is Fame The Goal?
No. I wouldn't wish fame on anyone.

This isn't about fame. The world has enough celebrities.

This is about being worthy. Skip the fame, if you want.

I just ask you to have goals that, if achieved, would be worthy of fame.

What If You Fail To Reach A Goal?
I'm not going to hunt you down and slap you. (I'm not that good a teacher.)

But we can't let the fear of failure rob us of the thrill of ambition.

And if we don't have goals, we can't be surprised if we don't reach them.

What Else?
Without a plan, goals are just hopes. And dependent on luck for success.

So, for each goal, outline a five-year syllabus for personal creative development: the people you need to meet, the books you need to read, the places you need to go, and whatever else you need to learn so you can reach each goal.

Sounds like a big deal?
It is. But if you don't do this for yourself, you are delegating your learning and life planning to your teachers.

And we simply aren't going to do it for you.

I'm too busy messing up my life to spend time messing up yours.

How to Get Into Yale

Dear Uh, Artie?,

Hello. My daughter is interested in attending Yale. We were wondering how soon is too soon to begin preparing for the process. She is a freshman in high school. Is there someone who could give her pointers on what classes could best prepare her, extracurriculars, what Yale is looking for, share memories of his/her Yale years, etc.? We would appreciate it greatly.

Thank you.

— "Parent Who Cares"

Dear Parent:

I'm glad for your and your daughter's interest in Yale. I'm glad when anyone cares about education at all.

My response is strictly my own perspective as a teacher and parent. It is not based on some official Yale policy or recommendation.

Beat's Me
I have no idea what advice to give you, this early in your daughter's high school life. Perhaps her high school college counselor might have useful advice.

I believe that the best thing to do is encourage your daughter to live fully now — for the sake of a rich life today, rather than in pursuit of acceptance to a college. If she nourishes her interests, develops her strengths, finds passion in some of her academic and extracurricular life, then she will be doing everything she can.

At my 25th Yale reunion, I learned of classmates who had moved halfway around the world to increase their chances of acceptance to Yale (as international candidates). Hard to believe. I don't know if it worked. I don't recommend it.

My own perspective on what Yale is looking for...
Again this is just one guy's intuition. I don't have any inside information. Just perspective based on applying in 1978 and watching casually ever since. I've also interviewed Yale applicants during the years and seen Admissions make choices that I could not predict.

The Admission Committee isn't making individual acceptance decisions, so much as they are convening a class. The pool is so rich — they could easily double or triple the class without diminishing quality — that they are more focused on assembling a tremendous community. The right mix of people. Just combine in New Haven and stir.

This means it's hard for any of us to predict what qualities Yale seeks when then come through Ohio or Osaka. That can be frustrating, because we're all working one-on-one with our wonderful children. Yale understands that. But Yale needs to make sure they have one of each of the best, so there is enormous diversity and, well, collegiality. So, all too often, a tremendous individual is passed over.

But all this is far too early.
There is life to be lived in the meantime. And not lived for Yale.

Come what may, the best is yet to be.

Wishing you every delight,

-- Artie

When Words Matter

Question: Is talk cheap?

Answer: Not in a rich life.

I've been inside a few highly successful companies recently, taking notes on the words they choose. And how the words they choose lead to functional or dysfunctional teams.

Here are some examples of phrases that work poorly:

• "Yes, but..."
  When people use these words to change the subject, "Yes" = "I hear wind coming from your mouth, but it's my turn to talk now" and "But" = "now we are finally going to talk to about something truly significant." I first learned that "Yes, but..." are the two most dismissive words in the English language from my teachers — and now colleagues — at Improvedge.

• "It is what it is."
  This means nothing to anyone. Or it means: "I give up." Same with: "It's all good." And: "Dude."

• "Does that make sense?"
  This is often a passive-aggressive statement that really means, "Please don't tell me that you are too thick to make sense of my brilliant concepts." Even if it's sugar-coated as "Am I making sense?", it really means, "Does this make sense to you?"

• "Can I be honest with you?"
  A business student asks, "What? Have you been lying to me up until now?"

• "I'm not feeling the love."
  A senior executive and principal at a company volunteered this statement that he has often used — and suddenly realized isn't clear. When his executive colleagues were asked for its meaning, they suggested a variety, from "Leave me alone." to "Sell me harder."

Well, Maybe He's Just Not Feeling The Love
Maybe.

But I often wonder how precise language needs to be when it really matters. I imagine the President's Cabinet meetings. (Any administration.)

I don't imagine the Secretary of Defense saying to the Secretary of Offense, "I'm not feeling the love." Language matters. The cost of vague statements can be vast. Time cannot be wasted.

Meetings of the Cabinet. Discussions in an hospital's emergency room. Orders in a kitchen of a fine restaurant.

Where words matter, folks aren't feeling around for love. Or words.

A Warning
Trying to not say these phrases can be awkward. 

For a while, for example, folks will say, "Yes, and..." in a way that intends to work like "Yes, but..." but sounds more tortured.

Yes, language can force us through gyrations.

Yes, and...

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place."

— George Bernard Shaw

Are You Keystone Curious?

Rob asked to borrow my projector, so I was showing him how it works.

Because projectors used to cost a lot of money — and the replacement light bulbs used to cost hundreds of dollars — I can get pretty urgent and self-important on the care and proper use of the projector. It seems to be a relic of my many decades as a pretty urgent and self-important guy.

It's just that I can remember the day when I finally entered the ranks of Those Very Cool People Who Are Successful Enough To Have Their Very Own Projectors.

Anyway, I'd gone over the basics like the power cord and on-off switch.

Now, we were dealing with some very technical, very upper level, very rather rather issues.

The Keystone Effect
I asked, "Rob, do you know about keystoning?"

Technical Note #12: Keystoning
When projecting from a low surface, such as a conference room table, onto a higher perpendicular surface, such as a screen or white wall well above where the plane of the table intersects with the plane of the higher surface, the image is no longer a rectangle. It becomes a symmetrical trapezoid.

This is known as the keystone effect. Happily, in the contemporary day, one need only use the keystone adjustment and the computer within the projector will automatically correct the shape. (I think it is amazing and delightful.)

He looked at me quizzically, so I explained keystoning.

Immediate Relief
Rob was strangely relieved to hear my explanation of intersecting planes. He smiled as he sighed.

He explained: "When you asked me if I knew about keystoning, I thought you had — as you often do — departed from the subject at hand to ask me about something unrelated. And, frankly, I thought that keystoning sounded like some new, deviant sexual activity. And I feared that you were going to introduce me to something I might be better off not knowing."

We all know cases of that. There are so many deviant sexual activities — and so many have poetic or, increasingly now, technical names drawn from physics of geometry.

Or the culinary arts.

Here's Something I'd Rather Not Know
A recent letter to the editor in our hometown daily newspaper complained about a comment in the preceding day's issue. Though I didn't recall the offense, apparently someone had been quoted calling members of the Tea Party "tea baggers."

[SPOILER ALERT: You are about to learn about a deviant sexual practice. To avoid this, click here.]

Possibly, I'd seen that reference and just accepted it. "Tea Baggers" sounds reasonable enough a nickname. I kind of liked it. The Tea Party, like many social movements, can seem overly earnest and I find it refreshing when serious groups adopt cheerful nicknames. Though my calm makes me ill suited to the Tea Party — recent polling by The New York Times shows them to be angry — I was glad they had a cheerful nickname.

Well, the letter explained that "as everyone knows, this refers to a deviant sexual practice."

"My dear woman," I thought, glancing at the letter writer's name (and her home address, in a conservative suburb), "I do not know of this deviant sexual practice. And you clearly do. Thank you for sharing your expertise in deviant sex with our entire community."

So of course, I did my intellectual duty by Googling "tea bagger." And I learned plenty. I won't provide you with a link. You'll have to Google it yourself, you intellectual, you.

Meanwhile, Back In The Boudoir
So I told Mrs. Isaac (the wife, not the mother — and why must they share this name?) about Rob's fearful — and, I might add, slightly hopeful — misinterpretation of keystoning.

She laughed.

Now she keeps begging for keystoning. And I don't know what to do.