(A tribute to John Benson, the self-styled Christmas geek)

The Christmas geek was all the rage,
His notoriety front page.
They came from far and wide to gauge
The wisdom of this noted sage.

The geek was driven to inspire
Those Christmas shoppers to desire
The best of presents to acquire,
And smooth transactions to transpire.

The geek would seek the very best
To recommend to all the rest.
He put new products to the test,
Approving those he would suggest.

The geek he prodded, poked, and stabbed,
And then with others he confabbed.
And finally the best he tabbed,
What shoppers later went and grabbed.

This Christmas geek, he loved his craft—
While those around him thought him daft.
But he forged on, he worked and laughed,
As he helped shoppers dodge the shaft.

There is an old saw that says, “Laws are made to be broken.”  I think this is true.  Think about it: If  laws are not made to be broken, why would there be any need for laws?  In a society of robots, no laws are necessary since behavior is already programmed in.  It wouldn’t occur to robots to go against their programming; they simply follow their programming, no questions asked.

Laws that restrict behavior are written for one of two purposes: to outlaw certain behaviors that are already frowned upon by society; and to affect changes in behavior within society.  Murder would fall into the first category; smoking into the second.

From time to time, society moves to outlaw activities or actions that are presently perfectly legal, but for some reason have been now deemed a detriment to society.  Laws do not easily change behavior, but they do “bend” behavior.  Over time, the bend becomes permanently fixed, and extremely difficult to undo.

I am in total agreement that we should obey laws as they exist; but we also have every right to protest what we don’t agree with and try to change it. That is certainly the American way, and it is actually part of our obligation as freedom-loving American citizens.

Also part of the “American way” is this: When a law so strongly violates our conscience, or our understanding of scripture that we hold sacred, or morality that we understand as absolute, we can choose to violate the law. However, in so doing, we should be prepared to accept the consequences that will surely result from our violation of the law—even to the extent that we could be jailed for our flouting of the law.  This is sometimes necessary, however, to affect change when unjust laws have been so strongly entrenched in society.  It is also necessary when government attempts to impose new laws that are unjust or unsupported by society at large.  One need only look at the American Revolution and, later, the American civil rights movement to understand this.

Some famous law-breakers from American history include George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and all of the founders of our country;as well as Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, Tatanka Iyotaka (Chief Sitting Bull), Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King, Jr.  I think most of us would be proud to be found in the company of any of these lawbreakers.  For they are lawbreakers who all had a strong hand in shaping the country as we know it, and in making it better.

I opened the bedroom drapes this morning and looked through the slider doors. My gaze continued out beyond the deck, across the backyard to the base of my shed. There was a nervous little chipmunk darting around in what often seemed like several directions at once. You know how they are.

I watched the scurrying chipmunk for a short time; he had no idea that he was under surveillance, and he continued going about his business, which—as far as I could tell—was essentially the expenditure of nervous energy. I was feeling a little like the guy with the binoculars in a James Bond movie. It was then that I moved my gaze a few feet off the ground. Suddenly, I was startled when my eyes met another pair of eyes starring directly back at me. There on the limb of a tree, not thirty feet in front of me, was a large, gray squirrel who had apparently been perched there and watching me the entire time. We were like characters in a good spy novel; he had me in his sights, and I have no doubt that he would have taken me out had I made an aggressive move.

The squirrel and I stared at each other for a short time; then I blinked first, and I turned and walked away. I was feeling so superior while watching the chipmunk, but suddenly I had been “one-upped” by his brother woodland rodent. I guess they take care of their own. It became clear to me this morning that many of us have a lower opinion of the animal kingdom than we should have. And to think we somehow believe that we are the dominant creatures on the planet.

We often hear the phrase “think outside the box.”  Yet, most of us tend to “think” in that space outside the box where everyone else seems to be doing their thinking.  We “think” we are thinking outside the box, but our thinking is barely beyond the bounds of the box, in an area where it will be rattled if the flaps of the box are opened even slightly.  So much of our outside-the-box thinking is mundane and not creative at all; we don’t have to look far to see that hordes of other people are thinking through the same things in the same way.

Yet there are great thinkers and great creative artists from history who have thought outside the box, way beyond the bounds of the box, even well beyond any degree of influence that the box might hold.  They have broken free of the gravitational attraction of the box in much the same way as sojourners to the moon must break free of earth’s gravity if they are ever to make their destination.  Such thinkers and artists are transcendent in their respective fields.  They can’t even see the box anymore.  They have thought in realms where no one else has ever traveled with their minds; and in so doing, they have opened up new galaxies for the rest of us to explore.  Dante was one such person, as was DeVinci, Beethoven, Einstein—and the list goes on.

I firmly believe that there are realms of time and space, and planes and spheres and dimensions of reality, that the finite mind can never fathom—places where neither mind nor body will ever travel.  Yet, great thinkers and great artists get us closer, and their works carry us along.  Dante’s “Divine Comedy” is such a work with the power to transport us far beyond the box.  DeVinci’s “Last Supper” is another such work.  Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is certainly in a realm all its own; it exists in a space far beyond the box on the pathway to infinity, as does Einstein’s theories of “general” and “special” relativity.

The human mind is capable of understanding so much, and—then again—so little.

The congress has been grappling with new “hate crimes” legislation as of late.  I have always thought the concept of “hate crimes” is nonsensical. If you kill someone in anger, it is a fairly safe bet that you “hated” the person. And even if you didn’t hate him, dead is dead. Right?

If you chain a black person off the back of a pickup truck and drag him down a gravel road (and it is abhorrent to me to even see these words falling off my fingers), you might be doing this because you hate him, or you hate black people in general; or maybe in your demented mind you think that this is some sort of recreational fun.  Physically, the object of your torture suffers greatly and maybe even dies at your hand.  If you do the same thing with a middle-aged, balding Dutchman, you might also think that this is some sort of recreational fun.  Or maybe you hate this guy because he is Dutch, or middle-aged, or balding.  My point is this: Who knows?  Who cares?  The physical result of your actions is the same in both cases regardless of what was going through your mind at the time.

A crime is a crime, and punishment should be meted out in proportion to the seriousness of the crime, not the motivation for the crime.  To elevate the status of one crime because of motivation is to diminish the status of another crime of the same sort solely because it does not meet a particular “burden” of motivation.  For victims, this is not equal justice under the law; this does not represent an America of equal protection for all her citizens.  Instead, this is special protection for some, lesser protection for others.

The conclusion of many, me included, is that “hate crimes” legislation is not aimed at punishing crime; it is aimed at limiting speech.  It seems clear that this legislation—perhaps more aptly named “hate speech” legislation—will be used to single out, censure, and eventually punish those who dare to think differently from the prevailing group-think and speak differently from the prevailing and politically correct group-speak.

Freedom of speech is the cornerstone of our democratic republic.  We should all be opposed to any governmental limitation of free speech.  Freedom of speech runs contrary to the norms of history and the present-day norms of most countries of the world.  Without free speech, we become China, or Russia, or any other run-of-the-mill nation.  Freedom of speech is what makes America different; it is the bold experiment still underway as it has been for more than 230 years now.

Freedom of speech is as American as it gets. “Hate crimes” legislation is just about as un-American as it gets.

We stopped over the weekend at the Leelanau Coffee Roasting Company in Glen Arbor, Michigan, as we are often wont to do during a northern Michigan trip that my wife and I take each fall.  I had the cappuccino; she had a chai.  An animated discussion was going on among the patrons around the tables—I imagine it is often that way in this quaint coffee shop, and it was fun to sip our drinks and listen in.

We love this stop!  We always do.  It is about the last thing we do before we point the nose of the car south and head toward home.  This year, though, we got a bit of a scare when trying to start the car to leave.  We couldn’t get it started.  The engine turned over just fine, but it wouldn’t “catch.”  It took me a few seconds to even realize that there was a problem going on here because I just expect this car to take off running at the first quick twist of the key.

This was a first-time, very unexpected problem with this car, a car that has so far proved to be the most reliable vehicle I’ve ever owned.  A bit puzzled, I tried the ignition a second time with the same perplexing result.  At that point, I got out of the car, put the hood up, and looked around inside the engine compartment—I didn’t really think that I would see anything out of the ordinary, but a man must always “look like” he knows what he is doing in situations like this.

After a minute or so, I got back in and tried it again.  This time the car started up right away, just like it normally does.  Finally!  The engine ran fine from there on out, and we had no problem at all the rest of the day, even though we stopped and started the engine a dozen or more times before we got home.

Now that I look back on this incident, I think the car probably just wanted to linger a while longer over the great coffee!

When I heard the other day that Barack Obama had won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, my first thought was this: “What exactly has he done to merit this prize?”  Now, I not saying that he doesn’t deserve it;  but, seriously, I would be interested in knowing what he has “done”—what he has “accomplished”—that would warrant him gaining this prize.

As the day wore on, this became something of a theme in the media and elsewhere.  Even Obama himself seemed to signal that he had reservations about his choice as this year’s recipient.  The president had this to say about the matter:

“Let me be clear, I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations. To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize, men and women who’ve inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.”

So Obama, by his own words, doesn’t believe that he deserves this award.  But the larger point is this: Even Obama understands that this award has nothing at all to do with his accomplishments, but rather with what he “hopes” he will be able to accomplish.  It is also about what leftist European elitists “hope” that they can push him towards.  In any case, I’m really glad he cleared this all up; I was beginning to think that maybe I missed something.

I’ve posted these in a couple of different places now, so I might as well codify them for posterity in an blog post.  So, here are Mike’s three universal laws of do-it-yourselfery:

1.  The job is always harder and more involved than it you think it will be and—by all that’s sane—should be;

2.  After all of the fussing, the job won’t get done right and will need to be revisited;

3.  You will slice a finger doing the very last thing before giving up.

A mechanic I know once had a sign in his repair shop that read:

50/hour, basic service;
100/hour, if you watch and give advice;
150/hour if you tried to fix it yourself and now we have to clean up your mess!

Let this serve as a warning to do-it-yourselfers wherever you may be found. Save yourself the grief and call in an expert at the outset!

‘Nuff said.

The chilly, overcast afternoon found me out on my bicycle, cruising down the bike path and dodging raindrops that threatened to ripen quickly into a full-fledged downpour.  Gone are the sunny, warm days of bicycling where a single water bottle simply will not suffice for an hour’s ride.  Gone are the tee-shirts and shorts, and with them the casual bikers and walkers that often crowd the way during the warmer, more pleasant weather.  There is no doubt now that fall has arrived.

At one point on this ride, I crossed over a bridge that spans an inland lake’s backwater that I know all too well.  In another time, early October would find me in my little boat anchored in five or so feet of water just offshore of the “back nine” of a scenic and serene golf course.  On a day like today, I would have been all alone out there, braving the biting wind and appreciating the subtleties of an expansive sky, a cloudy canopy rich in its intricate—though gloomy—patchwork of decoration.

I no longer own the boat, and—yes—I do miss those last few days of the boating season, days of solitary reflection on a summer now relinquished, and resignation to the long winter that will soon command a healthy measure of respect from us all.  But the thought occurs to me that while today is a time removed from those now-vanquished last days of the boating season, the times have not really changed at all.  I still found myself on that quiet backwater this afternoon.  As I do every fall, I was once again out observing the last gasps of summer, or perhaps the very first, half-hearted grasp of winter.  I had simply traded one means for another; I was still enjoying this time and this place as I always have.

For good or for ill, we never leave the past behind; rather, it is the past that provides the broad outlines for our future, and enriches it.

I am amused—for utter loss of a better description—by the folks bemoaning the fact that President Obama has been frustrated in trying to have his way with America.  They have tried every means possible to completely stifle dissent—let alone debate—on the health care initiative and other issues.  They have attacked talk radio and conservative news networks (read: Fox News); they have pounced upon average US citizens bold enough to say “enough is enough!” at town hall meetings; they have—to their complete shame—now even invoked race, trotting out that old relic Jimmy Carter last week to try to make legitimate their charges of racism.

Yes, this spectacle  is amusing.  It is also scary.  We are now seeing the true colors of those who would smoother that which is paramount to a robust, thriving democracy: free speech.  Free speech is truly the bedrock of our republic; without it we simply cease to exist.  Those who oppose the critics and the criticisms of this government also seem to oppose the “right” to criticize—the “right” to dissent—that should be cherished by all Americans regardless of their political bent; it is despicable that their route to shutting down dissent is to call you a racist if you oppose them.  And they know that if they can paint you as a racist, you will be effectively marginalized; they will have shut you up.  But they will have done more than that; they will have succeeded in undermining free speech, in digging up the bedrock, and in pouring quicksand into the void—quicksand that will quickly consume your other few remaining freedoms.