Art is for Everyone!

My wealthiest neighbors are worried that poor, inner city kids in Detroit might lose access to Van Gogh, Diego Rivera murals, and some truly impressive suits of armor.

They were the first to put out lawn signs in support of a new tax to "save" the Detroit Institute of Arts.  Television commericals, direct mail pieces and press reports are all on message:  save our museum.  Detroit needs its art.

I definitely agree.  Detroit needs the DIA.  We've been members of the museum for years.  It's a treasure for sure.

But, I can't seem to get the smell of something disingenuous out of my nose.  While the DIA is a well-visited museum, open to visitors from all parts of our community, it is a rather "high brow" institution.  The well-heeled patrons sponsoring the current media blitz, the only ones who could afford hosting a private reception in the Rivera courtyard, say they are looking out for the best interests of the larger community.  After all, "Art is for everyone!"

And, I guess, since art is for everyone, it's only fair that everyone pays through higher taxes to keep the DIA's doors open.  Hmm.  I guess.

If only there weren't the obvious inconsistencies in this message that no one, I mean NO ONE other than Pat Caputo from sports radio has bothered to point out.

Where were these high minded community voices when the nation's oldest aquarium on Belle Isle was closing--guess fish aren't for everyone.  Or where were their voices when our president was fighting to provide health insurance to the uninsured--guess affordable medical care isn't for everyone, either.

I understand we all have our passions--and we work to promote those things that we find meaningful.  However, when one says, this passion in so important, that the entire community should support it through public funds, then it's important to step back and ask, "why?"  Or, better yet, in a time when first responders are being asked to take pay cuts, when public parks and community health programs are being trimmed, we need to prioritize.  Is art really more important than, say, prenatal screening programs?  Should the DIA flourish while the State Fair grounds remain shuttered?

I love art.  But I also love healthy communities.  I love the world's largest cast iron stove.  And I also miss the electric eel.  Maybe the drive to "save" the DIA might encourage my neighbors to throw their impressive credentials and deep pockets to save other important treasures still in danger in the Detroit area.  Or maybe, having saved the Roman statues, the Persian rugs, and the ivory carvings from being auctioned at Christie's, they can go back to criticizing poor people for needing public assistance, cash strapped municipalities for their wasteful spending and generally complaining about high taxes.

Maybe if Medicaid had a museum?

Science Guys Can Be So Tiresome!

My son thought the guy made sense.

I thought he was full of s**t.

I heard similar arguments before--from a guy I knew in college. "I could get A's in all the classes you take," he used to sneer. "But you wouldn't last five minutes in my classes."

He might have been right. He studied actuarial science. You know, the facinating course of study that prepares people to set insurance rates. All that complicated math--I would be lost in five minutes. And bored, too.

My undergraduate classes were far from boring. I took Shakespeare. I read Hume and Mill. I even studied Jazz music. My liberal arts studies included heavy doses of literature, philosphy, and speech classes. The closest I got to math was Statistics and Economics. No, not prepared for a job in the insurance industry.

Students who abandon math and science cut themselves off from lucrative potential careers. And, many commentators worry that our nation is losing ground to the rest of the world as interest in advanced Calculus continues to fade. At the same time, even "easier" courses of study in the arts and humanities require effort. Being able to do something doesn't mean you're good at it. There's a song, "If you can walk, you can dance." However, just because you can dance doesn't make you a dancer.

In the same way, just because you can write, doesn't make you a writer.

My son was speaking to a college recruiter encouraging bright high schoolers to pursue coursework in engineering. He told the teens not to waste their time taking writing courses, because, "All engineers can write. But not many writers can be engineers." Just love that logic, don't you.

Don't get me wrong, I urged my oldest daughter to study engineering--I thought she could write her own career ticket. She took political science instead. And the second daughter? No math there, either. And the youngest boy? The one who really is good at math and science? He'd rather study journalism right now.

Chips off the old block these children of mine. And, despite my pleadings to keep their options open--I can't be very persuasive when I followed a different path myself.

If I spent more time thinking about it, I could come up with a quippy comeback for the stuck up Math guy, but for now, I'll leave him and his socially inept friends to go figure out my insurance rates, while I go write a memo for my client. Or maybe download that new Stanley Jordan track.

Word Vomit You Can Use

Cady Heron, Lindsey Lohan's character in "Mean Girls," had a habit of blurting out things, even though she knew nobody wanted to hear the words.  She called it "word vomit," which was her term for uncontrollable utterances.

I know about word vomit--because I sometimes say things that I swear I can't control.  For example, when I'm in the street and see two adults on bikes with a child, invariably the child is wearing a helmit, but the adults are riding without.  It drives me crazy.  What's the child supposed to do when his/her parent suffers a traumatic brain injury?  What kind of example is that parent setting?  I always say something--I can't help it.

Fortunately I live by my beliefs.

Yesterday I decided to enjoy the early summer weather with a bike ride along the lake.  The weather was beautiful--and I actually enjoyed being out . . . until I encountered a couple of slow moving bikers.  Not wanting pass them by moving out into traffic, I decided to move to the sidewalk and pass on the inside.  Not a very good plan, but seemed somehow safer to me.  Bad idea.

Making a hard right turn onto a slightly raised driveway proved disasterous.  My bike went down and I flew over the handle bars right onto . . . grass.  That was lucky.  I did hit my head, hard.  And I hit my shoulder (even harder).  Of course about 100 people saw my crash, and all but two of them spared me their direct sympathy.   I was too embarrassed at the moment to listen.

"Are you alright?" asked the two bikers I was trying to avoid in the first place?

"Yeah, I'm fine."  I smiled back.  Relieved, they rode on.

But I wasn't fine.  My head had just bounced off the ground, and my shoulder . . . God, I hope it wasn't broken.  That would suck big time.

I was near the end of my ride--and my bike was undamaged.  I carefully pedaled the rest of the way home without incident.  I had not suffered a concussion--my balance was normal.  No ears ringing.  No pain.  I did have an abrasion on my forehead from the helmet, but no blood.  That would have been ugly, especially since I was reading in church for Pentecost Sunday in an hour.

And, I was less and less worried about the shoulder, too.  I had full range of motion.  Pain, but no swelling.  Bruised, yes.  Battered, definitely.  Broken, no.

Church went fine.  My wife and I were readers who were part of the mult-language babble to illustrate the miracle of Pentecost Sunday.  I read German.  Clarisa read Spanish.  And I did it without drooling, suffering from a splitting headache, and with clear vision.

You see, I was wearing a properly fitted biking helmet earlier in the day.  And, even though I bumped my head hard from falling, my brain was uninjured.  Thank God!

Talk about a Pentecost miracle!

As God is my Witness . . .

Yeah, it's a great moment in the greatest movie of all times.  Scarlett O'Hara, looking at the ruins of Tara--utters the famous words, "As God is my witness.  They're not going to lick me  I'm going to live through this.  And when it's over, I'll never be hungry again."

I uttered nearly the same words the first time I was fired from a job. The experience was devastating.  At the time, my career choices were limited.  I lacked skills and experience that could easily transfer to new employment.  But, I had a family to feed and it was up to me to bring home the bacon.  So, thanks to good advice and a supportive spouse, I dragged my aging butt back to school, earned a law degree from a top-five law school, passed the bar, and, voila, amazing options opened.  It took long hours, hard work, lots of prayers for patience, and financial hardship.  But, like Scarlett O'Hara, I discovered the path to security required hard work, sacrifice, and a compromise or two along the way.

What kind of compromises you might wonder?  Nothing that would ever land me in jail.  However, I've been a few places on this journey I never expected, all in the name of making a living.  Maybe someday I'll dish--but the blog will be anonymous or told by the Lucky Lawyer.   What I can say here is this:  I was not in the room when the pepper spray was blasted. But, I did see the stripper with man hands.  She was remarkably pretty.

As God is my witness . . . .

Now that I've had my Scarlett O'Hara moment, I'm barreling down on a Kim Wayans moments.  Like in one of those In Living Color skits where she spewed out EXACTLY what was on her mind, all in the name of "keeping it real."  I'm in the mood to tell off somebody who has done me wrong. 

I wonder if I could curse and swear at the guy and say I've come down with a temporary case of Tourettes.  Or maybe, I'll just look him in the eye and say what I think.

I haven't been this disappointed with a professional colleague in a long time.  And, he needs to hear what I think about what he did.  We've been planning to meet for beers after work for weeks--it's my mission to see that this meeting happens.

As God is my witness . . .  this man has some explaining to do.

Flatter Me? Mock Me?

It's been said, "Imitation is the highest form of flattery."

That's true when the urge behind the imitator is emulation.  Teenagers want to look like the persons they idolize.  Older people wear sports gear favored by admired athletes.  Women ask hairdressers to cut their hair like fashion models.  However, there's nothing flattering when imitation is bent on mockery.

We laugh when Jimmy Fallon "slow jams" the news, serving up a performance Barry White would enjoy because we know Fallon truly admires African American culture and R & B music.  But when all-white fraternities and soroities host "Pimps and Hos" parties, I for one feel sick in my stomach.

It's bad enough when African American artists glamorize misogyny and prostitution, but the sight of sheltered suburbanites wearing afro wigs and fishnet stockings is hard to swallow.  I think even Al Jolson would blush.

So when does good natured imitation veer into frown-worthy mockery?  It's hard to pin down, but like Potter Stewart's famous Supreme Court obscenity standard, "I know it when I see it."

Unfortunately, even when the impulse is good natured, sometimes imitation truly is unnecessary.  Are any cultural divides bridged when political leaders or celebrities don native garb and dance some goofy friendship dance while cameras record every embarassing moment?  I don't think so.

And, my family wants to run for cover every time I try to speak a foreign language I don't know.  Or, worse, when I use broken, accented English to non-English speakers.

"Dad," Isaac said to me more than once.  "They expect you to know your own language.  They don't understand you better when you speak that way."

But I was just trying to be culturally sensitive.  So are many other patronizing foreigners when they encounter "less sophisticated" native peoples.

I guess it's all about respect and appreciation.

Keep slow jamming the news Jimmy Fallon--especially when you get a big assist from Barack Obama and The Roots play backup.  And me, let me focus on imitating Emeril in the kitchen and stop trying to be Meryl Streep with dialects. 

Maybe imitation is only flattering when it's good natured AND well executed.

Get Your Lazy Bones Out of Bed!

There are two kinds of people in the world:  morning people and lazy people.

Morning people are eager to start their days.  They plan.  They imagine.  They can't wait to face the world.

Lazy people want to sleep.  They stay in bed even when awake.  They avoid doing productive endeavors.  They make excuses for everything.  Why?   Because . . . because . . . well, who knows?

There are two kinds of people in the world:  robots and creators.   Robots sleepwalk through life without much reflection.  They get up.  They go to work.  They come home.  They go to bed.  Over and over, again and again, they do as they're told and do it some more.  Creators have little love for routine.  They see the work-a-day-world as a prison that stiffles creative thought.  Tight, rigid schedules make life intolerable.  They function best when free to move when their muse moves them.

Clearly there are more than two kinds of people in the world.  However, depending on the day, we can only see two types:  people like us and people not like us.  Usually people like us are imbued with every positive quality and characteristic, while people not like us are easily maligned or ignored.

The book Please Understand Me by David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates was all the rage a few years back.  Corporations and organizations bought copies of the 120-page manual and passed them out to their people.  The book included an abbreviated version of the MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indictator) test with analysis.  Organizations and groups gave their members this test believing that by understanding various personality types,  members would know each other better and productivity would increase.

The MBTI is a test based on Jungian psychology (loved Michael Fassbender in A Dangerous Method, btw) and divides the world into various personality and temperment profiles based on answers to a series of questions.  No value judgments are placed on the various temperments--no one type is "better" or "worse" than the other, they're just different.  However, implicit in these categories is the idea that persons may be better suited for certain roles over others based on their personality.  For example, probably not a good idea to make an introverted thinker the head of your sales team!

While understanding people's personalties may be useful in knowing your friends, family members, and co-workers, does it help you enjoy being stuck with a thankless task because it "better suits your personality"?

Think back to the biblical story of Mary and Martha.  Martha was stuck fixing food and cleaning house when Jesus came by, while her sister Mary sat at Jesus' feet and listened to him speak.  Jesus said Mary made the better choice by skipping work and listening to him.  I see his point.  Seriously, how important is the pita and hummus when the Son of God sits in your living room?

I know people who never relax.  They are so busy futzing around that they miss seeing rainbows and hearing birds sing.  Too bad for them.  At the same time, does a person get a pass from menial tasks and drudgery simply because it's counter to their personality type?  Does anybody really enjoy scrubbing toilets?  I don't think so.

Knowing personality types helps us understand the people around us.  We know why certain tasks seem more difficult for some and why others enjoy doing the tasks they enjoy.  Diversity in personality and temperment is not, however, a measure of ability or a limit on responsibility.  We can be good at things we don't enjoy.  And, if our group needs that task performed, we might be stuck doing it.  Further, our positions may require us to "take care of business" even if we wish somebody else would step up in our place.  You can't expect a willing minor to run to the the 24-hour pharmacy when the baby is sick at night.

In a perfect world, our lives would be unending bliss--and everyone would perform only the tasks that bring us joy.  We all would feel fulfilled, self actualized, and free from pressure.  However, in the world where I live, someone has to wash dishes, clean up dog poop, discipline the children, and struggle with bills.  Not always fun--but necessary.

Do I feel put upon or frustrated when some of these tasks fall on my shoulders?  Yes!   But, I'm not alone here.  Do I feel guilty when these tasks fall on other shoulders?  Sometimes.  Many families and groups share the same or similar personalities--that's why we were attracted to each other in the first place!  Therefore, when we all want to be the head, there's nobody left to be the feet.  Here's where communication and negotiation come to play.  Find a way to share the load so that no one person ends up being dumped on all the time.

Yet, communication and negotiation require work, while anger and resentment are easy.  Which will I choose today?  Which will you?

Welcome to Juno Alaska!

Yes, I know how to spell. The capital of Alaska is J-U-N-E-A-U. Juno is a Roman goddess. "Juno" is also the title of a 2010 movie starring Michael Cera and Ellen Page. And, Juno is the name we gave to the pictured Siberian Husky who moved into our house three weeks ago.

Hard to tell if she knows her name is Juno. After ongoing training efforts, the puppy understands "sit" (though she doesn't always sit when commanded). She understands "come" (though she doesn't always come when called"). She seems to know her name if there's food involved. Maybe she's just not attached to the name Juno. Maybe she still remembers "Tina"--the name her original owners called her.

I'm not sure I'm all that attached to the name Juno either. First week home, I think I preferred "Ghost Dog" because of her haunting blue eyes. Half the time I call her "Carly," the name of our 10-year old Lab--who, by the way, dithers between fear, disdain and grudging acceptance of the baby interloper. Lately I've been spitting out "Devil Dog" as the exuberant pup jumps on cabinets, chews chair legs, and poops everwhere but in her designated pooping spot.

There's no denying this puppy packs charisma--with her fluffy fur, bandit's face, affectionate personality, not to mention THOSE EYES! But she's a ton of work, too.

None of us clearly remember whether training Carly was this hard. Now moving into her final years, Carly is a mellow beast whose behavior mostly pleases her owners. She never messes the house, she doesn't jump on visitors. Her life is regular and orderly. Was housebreaking difficult for us ten years ago? I don't remember.

What I do recognize is that Carly, a submissive litter runt, might soon get alpha femaled by her new canine housemate. This Juno is willful, confident, and eager to explore. Katey bar the door!

Seriously, I'm gonna bar the doors--or at least set up some toddler gates.

Fasten your seatbelts, it's gonna be a bumpy night!

You aren't kidding Margo Channing. Early this morning (I'm talking 5 a.m.), I heard Juno yelping in her crate. It had been several hours since she last had been out. I figured her baby bladder needed relieving, and I got up to take her outside. When I got downstairs, Juno was jumping excitedly, and I tried to settle her down. Then I noticed puppy feces strewn everywhere. I took her outside, where she urinated as expected. Brought her in and gave her breakfast in an enclosed area. Then I began the stinky cleanup.

What made this mess so distressing was the fact that it was her third crate pooping incident in the same day! Has she decided the crate is her "designated pooping spot?" I thought dogs didn't poop where they slept?

Clearly we're doing something wrong.

Our puppy training manual says you can let a dog roam free in the house once you've gone an entire two weeks without an accident. Right now I'd settle for twelve hours!

Despite our muttered threats to give the dog back, or send her to the Humane Society, we know Juno is here to stay. And, like her namesake Roman goddess, looks like she has plans to become queen of this castle.

We'll see about that.