What Would Jimmy Do?

Dave has pretty much always been a Redskins fan. I know nowadays he doesn’t have a lot of time, but he watches the Redskins when he can, and Locke watches the games with him.

A couple of weeks ago, the Redskins played the Cowboys. I don’t know how much a 3 year old really knows about football, but Locke seemed to be into the game and made statements like, “ the Redskins need to get the ball.” So he at least had some idea of what was going on. Shortly after the game started, Locke asked who the blue team was. Dave told him that they were the Cowboys. Locke’s response was, “I don’t like the Cowboys.”

With talk like that, I think we have a true Redskins fan for the future…
— 30 —

Seems like there are lots of subjects I’m tired of hearing about lately. One is “the wall.” I’m tired of hearing about the wall, the big beautiful wall that the President wants to build along the US/Mexican border.

He obviously doesn’t believe it, but he’s not the first to come up with the idea of a wall for protection. Athens, the Roman Empire, Denmark and Korea have all built walls in the past. But if the President is really serious about the wall, he’d do well not to antagonize China and talk to them about a wall. The Chinese know some stuff about walls.

Of course, I’m referring to The Great Wall of China… it was built to protect China from its enemies and invaders from the North — primarily the Mongols, a tribal group that would regularly conduct raids into China. Despite the wall (President take note) the Mongols eventually conquered China. It should be noted that the Wall also kept Chinese citizens from leaving China. The Great Wall of China is an awe-inspiring feat of ancient defensive architecture. It is the world’s longest wall (President take note.) The Great Wall winds its way from west to east: across deserts, over mountain peaks, deep into ravines until it reaches the sea.

The Great Wall of China was not built all at one time (President take note.) In the 7th and 8th century BC, battles were frequently fought among the various Chinese states and in order to defend themselves they began to build walls and towers on the borders. It was the state Chu that built the first wall. The Qin Dynasty united the different states into one empire and to defend against the incursions from northern invaders, Emperor Qin Shi Huang ordered all the walls joined up… thus the Great Wall came into being.

Since the time the walls were joined, the Great Wall has been rebuilt, modified and extended throughout Chinese history for over 2,000 years by millions of Chinese people drafted for the task. Most of the Great Wall that we usually see in photos today was built during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644.) The “official” length of the Great wall is listed as 5500 miles, but the length of all all the pieces of the the Wall built over thousands of years is estimated to be about 13,170 miles.

Contrary to popular belief, the Great Wall of China cannot be seen from space (with the naked eye.) It has also been called the longest cemetery on Earth — over a million people died building the Wall and archaeologists have found human remains buried under parts of the Wall. One of the best known of all the legends about the Great Wall is the story of “Men Jiangsu’s Bitter Weeping” whose husband died building the Wall. Her weeping was so bitter that a section of the Wall collapsed, revealing her husband’s bones so she could provide him with a proper burial.

Today, over 10 million people visit the Great Wall of China every year.
In 1972 I visited The Great Wall of China… at that time only a small portion of the Wall was open to visitors and I was “escorted” by a member of the Chinese Diplomatic Service Bureau. The Chinese have a lot of “sayings,” and while we were traveling out to the Wall site, my “escort” told me that the Chinese have a famous saying, “He who does not reach the Great Wall is not a true man.”
I guess you know what that makes me……
— 30 —

Well, here it is time for some Chinese food again. Today is Ten Ten Day. Anyone that’s been reading this blog over the years, knows what’s coming. For anyone that’s stumbled across this by accident, here’s what I write just about every year.

Ten Ten Day (the 10th of October) is the National Day of the Republic of China. It commemorates the start of the Wuchang Uprising of 10 October 1911 that led to the collapse of the Qing Dynasty in China — and the establishment of the ROC on the island of Taiwan (on 1 January 1912.)
In Taiwan, Ten Ten Day begins with a flag-raising ceremony in front of the Presidential Building. After the flag is raised, the National Anthem of the Republic of China is sung.

In Taiwan, nearly all Taiwanese have the day off from work. In Hong Kong, small parades and celebrations are held though they have not been as lavish since the transfer of Hong Kong’s sovereignty from the United Kingdom to China in 1997. Overseas Chinese living in cities with large Chinatowns also host Ten Ten Day parades.

In mainland China, Ten Ten Day is referred to as the Anniversary of the Wuchang Uprising and memorial celebrations are often held.

Here in Shepherdstown, we always go out for Chinese food and celebrate with a glass of plum wine to top off the meal. It’s our very own tradition that began in 1972 when we lived in Manila next door to the Taiwanese Embassy and noticed the big parties they always held on Ten Ten Day. Now we look forward to it every year.
Happy Ten Ten Day to all….
— 30 —

Maybe it’s just me, but the Washington routine is getting old… maybe they need some new material. Seems recently — with Hurricane Florence wrecking havoc in the Carolinas, the earthquake/tsunami in Indonesia, the uncertainty of the Supreme Court Justice nomination and all the other important/serious issues kicking around, it’s been all about good and evil in Washington… the President is good, the press is evil, the Republicans are good, the Democrats are evil,

I grew up being taught that things (and people) were good and/or bad. Evil was a term I never heard much when I was younger. It seems it’s being used more lately. I’ve heard that there is a good force in the universe and a bad, or evil, one and that they are at war. I don’t know if that’s true… the “force” appears to be used more since the popularity of ‘Star Wars’. I’m “kind of” of the belief that there are good people and bad or evil people — I’m not sure about this war of the forces.
But I suspect that most of us are a mixture of good and bad.

A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles this way: “Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time.” When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, “The one I feed the most.” I couldn’t have said it better….
— 30 —

Tomorrow is October — the name of the eighth month of the year in the ancient Roman calendar. Octo (in Latin) means eight. When the Romans converted to a 12-month calendar, the name October stuck, even though it’s now the 10th month.

October is noted for Halloween at the end of the month. But this year, more than most, the first Monday of October is probably on most everyone’s mind because the Supreme Court starts its new term. The first Monday of October has marked the start of the Court’s annual sessions since 1917. In case you’re interested, the Court’s start date is mandated by a law passed by Congress. The 1916 law moved the Court term’s start date from the second Monday in October to the first Monday in October. Initially, the Supreme Court held two sessions every year — but how they got to just the one is the subject for another blog post….

Each year a new volume of a textbook on American political theory and practice is published. The textbook is written by a committee of nine members and the committee convenes on the first Monday in October every year to begin drafting the next volume. The textbook is the collected opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States.

On Monday, the Supreme Court will assemble in Washington to commence its 2018-19 term. Next summer, a new volume in the series of textbooks on American government will be published. Will the new textbook, reflecting the committees work, be better next year? No one knows for sure, but probably not. This term, maybe even more so than the last term, the picture of our constitutional system will be muddled and unclear. Principles will be modified or adjusted to fit the facts of particular cases.
The events of the last few days gives us all reason to worry that the Supreme Court will continue to be a body to interpret the Constitution, setting politics aside.

Justice Elena Kagan this past week stated…”The court’s strength as an institution of American governance depends on people believing it has a certain kind of legitimacy — on people believing it’s not simply just an extension of Politics, that its decision making has a kind of integrity to it.”
Let’s hope the Court keeps this in mind when writing the 2018-19 volume of the book…..
— 30 —

I’ve heard people say that “things happen in 3s.” If you’ve read this blog over the years, you’ve figured out that my favorite number is 3 — or at least some variation of it like 30 or 33. But 3 is an interesting number and even though it isn’t specifically mentioned, lots of things wouldn’t be complete if it wasn’t for 3…like, for instance, the past, present and future. That seems complete with three — if you just said, present and future… what happened before? Past and present begs to know what’s next and if there is just past and future, what about now? You need all three to make it complete. Same thing for beginning, middle and end. I think I’ve heard somewhere that three is actually considered the number of completion.

There’s a lot of things we just automatically associate the number 3 with, like 3 strikes and you’re out, a 3 ring circus, the 3 little pigs, the 3 stooges, 3 coins in a fountain, etc.

But a lot of our phrases and terms that we use all the time are made of of threes…
Like — faith, hope and charity; the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth; rock, paper, scissors; the good, the bad and the ugly; life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; small, medium and large; on your mark, get set, go; hear no evil, see no evil, speak evil; of the people, for the people, by the people; ready aim, fire and so it goes.

The number 3 is used in the Bible 467 times — obviously there’s the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but there were the Three Wise Men who brought three gifts — gold, frankincense and myrrh. As for those 467 Bible references to 3… I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader to check out.

Three is the first number that can mean a few or many… 1 is only a single, 2 is a couple, but when you get to 3, you can start using “few” or “many” and of course 3 is the “least” of few or many. You need at least 3 legs to make a table that will stand by itself. There are 3 primary colors from which you can make the other colors. Under Muslim law, a man can divorce his wife by repeating the phrase “I divorce thee” 3 times, and if you catch a Leprechaun and set him free, the Leprechaun will grant you 3 wishes.

I heard a country singer (I don’t remember which one) once say, “to succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone,a backbone and a funny bone.” And Casey Stengel said, “three things can happen in a baseball game – you can win or you can lose, or it can rain.”

Since we’re now in the home stretch of appointing a new Supreme Court Justice, I think a quote by Ruth Ginsburg is worth pondering: “We have the oldest written constitution still in force in the world, and it starts out with three little words, “We, the people…”
— 30 —

If you watch, listen or read the news, it’s all about Hurricane Florence. I’ve noticed a couple of times that Florence has been referred to as a cyclone — I don’t remember that term being used for a storm in the Atlantic Ocean before, but I figured that hurricane rules have probably changed like everything else. I wasn’t aware or any real difference in a hurricane and a cyclone, but thought I’d check.

My extensive research, once again, proved me correct.
The only difference between a hurricane and a cyclone (and a typhoon) is the location of the storm. If the weather disturbance (storm) occurs in the Atlantic or Northeast Pacific, it’s called a hurricane. If it occurs in the South Pacific or Indian Ocean, it’s a cyclone and if the storm is in Northwest Pacific, it’s called a typhoon.

All these storms get “names” arrived at by a strict procedure established by the World Meterological Organization. For Atlantic hurricanes, there is a list of male and female names that are used on a six-year rotation. The only time that there is a change is if a storm is so deadly or costly that the future use of its name on a different storm would be inappropriate.

So hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons are all the same. Of course I grew up with tornados, which is another whole subject. They don’t name tornadoes — well, at least they’re not called anything that would be appropriate for mixed company.
So keep your eye on Florence and “hunker down.” Just remember that after a hurricane, comes a rainbow.
— 30 —

Our oldest car is 15 years old. But it has low mileage and looks like new except for the normal dings from car doors, rocks, etc. But a few days ago, it got dinged in the rear by another car. From a distance, you can barely notice it, but the estimate to fix it was over a thousand dollars.

That got me to thinking…. about cars and costs and stuff like that. In 1972 we bought a brand new Corvette. Shortly after we bought it we started preparations to move to Manila in the Philippine Islands.
The headlights on Corvettes were/are “hidden” until they’re turned on and then they pop up to reveal the lights. From the day we bought the car, one of the headlights would creep open if the car was parked for an extended period — like overnight. Every morning when we approached the car, it looked like it was winking at us — or was hung-over after a bad night. We tried, and tried, and tried to get it fixed at the dealership with no luck.

We drove across country on our way to the Philippines and shipped the car to Manila from Los Angeles. On our cross-country trip we stopped in Oklahoma to visit my parents and my Dad’s favorite “best mechanic in the world” looked at the car and told us that he needed to order parts and a good part of the car need to be dis-assembled to install the new parts to correct the headlight issue. Since we only had a couple of days, we just didn’t have time for this “extensive repair.” So we drove to Los Angeles with the creeping headlight.

The car arrived in the Philippines a few weeks after we did. It turns out that when the car was being unloaded from the ship, it was dropped on the dock — I don’t think it fell very far, maybe ten feet or so. But it broke a switch that allowed the car to start only in neutral or park and somehow poked a hole in the muffler. Of course it still “winked” at you every morning.
We took to car to the local Chevrolet dealer to be repaired. The mechanics were very excited because they had never worked on a Corvette before. They were told to replace the switch and muffler and to take a look at the headlight — but not to spend too much time on the headlight as it was apparently a very complicated problem.
We got a call the next day that the car was ready. When I went to pick it up, the bill was something like 100 Pesos — I don’t remember the exchange rate at the time, but the total bill was less than twenty dollars. I asked them what they’d done… they “fixed” the switch, “patched” the muffler and took care of the headlight problem. I asked the about the headlight problem and they said they only needed to clean a valve.

Well, I figured with those kind of “repairs” the car would constantly be back to the shop or it would continue to have problems. We were in Manila a little over three years and we never had another problem with the Corvette with the exception of having to replace the battery a couple of years after we got there.
So much for high-tech cars and ace mechanics. Philippine mechanics still repaired cars instead of just replacing parts. Wonder how much it would cost to have our current cars’ dings repaired in Manila?
— 30 —

A few days ago, I indicated that Emily had started the school year already and mentioned how different the classroom layout and facilities are today compared to when I went to school.
It’s not just the physical environment that’s changed over they years — all sorts of things that we, and even our children, took for granted, aren’t permitted any more.

I remember that on, or around, Valentines Day we always had a class party and you always hoped that you’d get a valentine from someone special, even if you never told anyone there was anyone special. Well, based on what I’ve heard, kids don’t have to worry about that anymore… some schools have banned the holiday completely and those that do allow it require students to bring valentines for everybody in the class, or no one at all. I’m not sure if this is good or bad… at least no one gets their feelings hurt anymore. Lots of schools don’t allow any holiday celebrations anymore — or if they do, they have to be “generic” holidays.
I remember that if we were good (or lucky) we got sent outside to bang the blackboard/chalkboard erasers together to clean them. That always created clouds of chalk dust and a lot of coughing. (Maybe that was a punishment, not a reward as I remember it.) Anyhow, that doesn’t happen anymore, what with chalkboards giving way to white or “smart” boards.
We used to send cupcakes to school for everyone when one of our kids had a birthday. I’m told that many schools no longer allow that. Apparently, too many kids today are obese or have food allergies and it creates a potential “legal” problem for the schools. I’ve heard that some schools still allow certain non-allergenic and/or “healthy” treats…
When someone did something “bad” (I’m pretty sure “bad” had a different meaning when I went to school than it does today.) We were told to, “go stand in the corner.” Most everyone my age has spent some time in “the corner.” Today, standing in the corner is considered to be cruel, and maybe even corporal punishment.
When I went to school, I almost always walked — even when school was located on the other side of town. If the weather was really bad, I often got a “ride” with my parents or one of my friends’ parents, but usually — I walked. Very few kids walk to school today. I guess there’s a lot of reasons why they don’t, but nowadays parents can be charged with “unsubstantiated neglect” for letting their kids walk. The news recently ran a story about the police being called because a little girl walked her dog around the block without adult supervision. So, i guess if I had kids in school today, I’d be a little overcautious about letting them walk, too.
I took “shop” when I went to school. My sister took “home ec.” That’s because that was what you did. Home Ec was for girls, shop was for boys. I’m not sure, but I’d guess that both these subject are still offered in school, but I’m sure they’re both open to both boys and girls. That’s a good thing…
When I was little, we always made mother’s day and father’s day gifts in school. Usually Father’s Day gifts were ashtrays — shaped like turtles, or “something.” Needless to say, that doesn’t happen anymore —as far as I know, smoking is not allowed in (or near) any school.
One form of punishment we survived while in grade school was writing lines on the blackboard because we did something wrong — like we had to write “I won’t do that anymore” maybe 100 times. That form of punishment seems to have fallen out of favor with teachers, or maybe it’s considered somehow damaging to the student….
My homework papers were always marked up pretty good with a red pen. Well, some schools now require the teacher to use green, or some other color to make corrections to students’ work. Red ink is now considered too “confrontational” in nature.
I don’t think this is universal, but it’s true for at least one school — they’ve done away with the practice of students raising their hands to answer questions. Really!! A letter the school sent to the parents stated, “We find that the same hands are going up and as such the teaching does not challenge and support the learning of all.”

Well, I got a little carried away… we all know that things in general, not just schools have changed. Maybe it’s for the better — maybe not. I wonder if someday our grandkids will long for the “good old days” when you could even have a snowball fight on school grounds without fear of causing an injury or hurt feelings…
— 30 —

A number of years ago, when I was working for the government, we received a memo stating that any gratuity we received while on official business was the property of the government and not to be used for personal gain.
This was about the time the airlines were beginning their “frequent flyer” programs that included points that could be used for free tickets, etc.
Most of us traveled quite a bit and some people were upset that they wouldn’t be getting what they were “entitled to.” My personal view was, and is, that the government was paying for the ticket, so any benefits should go to them. Those rules changed so often over the years, I have no idea what the policy might be today.

Anyhow, a few days after receiving the memo, I flew to San Francisco and rented a car from National Car Rental. At the time National was having a promotion to increase business by offering free gifts with each transaction. After checking in at the rental counter and completing the paperwork, they handed me my rental agreement — and an umbrella. It was bright green with the National emblem on it. I pushed it back and told them that I couldn’t accept the gift because I was traveling on official business using government funds. They pushed it back to me and said that that didn’t matter to them and they were under instructions to give one to everyone that rented a car. We repeated that routine a few times and finally I gave up and left with the umbrella.

When I returned from my trip, I filled out all my accounting paperwork and sent it to the travel people — with the umbrella attached.
Within a few days I got a phone call asking why there was an umbrella included with my travel accounting paperwork. I explained that I was following the directions in the memo that we all received that indicated to me that the umbrella belonged to the government. The travel people told me they had no mechanism to handle umbrellas and that I should just keep it. I once again explained that I couldn’t — the memo I received clearly stated that it belonged to the government.

Over the next couple of weeks I received numerous phone calls from offices that I never even knew existed, asking why the umbrella was being sent to them and what I expected them to do with it. I always responded that I was just complying with the memo, which by this time I had almost committed to memory in its entirety, including the originating office, date, who signed it, etc.

Three or four months after submitting the umbrella to the “government” it came back to me via inter-office mail. It must have had 30 or 40 “routing slips” attached to it… most of them said, “what is this and why it being sent to me?” or, “why and I getting this?” or, “what am I supposed to do with this?”
Well, you get the idea — there obviously was no mechanism in place to support gratuities we received while on official business that rightly belonged to the government.

I just gave up on the umbrella and hung it in the coat room to become the “office umbrella” in case anyone got stuck and needed one. The umbrella was there a couple of days before someone stole it.
The point is that there is no point… when you write a blog about nothing, you don’t need a point
— 30 —