What Would Jimmy Do?

We got to spend the most time with Locke this week since he’s been born. The first time we saw him he was sleeping, at Christmas, he was awake some, but mostly just hungry. This time he had become a little person — took a few cat-naps, but was mostly awake and just checking things out. You could see amazement and wonder in his eyes sometimes and there was no questioning what he thought was funny — just amazing to see how much he’s developed and how active he’s become in such a short time.

I wonder what it is that make grandchildren tug at your heart and makes them so special? Maybe it’s because they’re all play and no work. I really don’t have the responsibility of raising them and because my mind isn’t concerned about mundane things like work, it’s easy to tune in to them, and then of course there’s the old saying, “send em’ home when they get cranky.” But I suspect there’s more to it than that.

I think because we’re not in contact with our grandkids every day and we’re not totally expected to discipline them, it creates a special kind of relationship. To be honest, my goal, and I work hard at it, is to be the world’s greatest grandkid spoiler and I’ve pretty much already forgotten the meaning of the word “no.” What a great job — this being a granddad.

I’m looking forward to more time with Locke — I’ve already decided grandsons can be just as much fun as granddaughters. Someone said, “never have children, only grandchildren.” I don’t totally disagree….
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Well, the news today is still brimming with ‘Deflategate’ articles. I got to thinking about why the suffix ‘gate’ has become so popular to describe just about any sort of a scandal. This all started with a 1972 political scandal that eventually forced Richard Nixon to resign the Presidency. Burglars, tied to the Nixon administration, were caught attempting to break in to the Democratic National Committee headquarters. The incident took place in a complex of buildings known as Watergate — all the events surrounding the incident took on the name “Watergate.”

So here it is more than 40 years later and the the New England Patriots and the NFL find themselves mired in something everyone is calling Deflategate. When did the use of ‘gate’ become an accepted suffix? Shortly after the scandal and resulting resignation, the news media started using words like “Watergatery” and “watergater” to describe sketchy behavior or unscrupulous people.
I don’t know if the news media is just unimaginative or not very creative, but it seems that the system they use is to take the last four letters of a previous (famous) scandal and add it on to all future scandals. Doesn’t seem like a good system, but ti appears to work. In 1973 the scandal-based definition of ‘-gate’ was added to the Merriam Webster dictionary.

I remember hearing a French scandal termed Winegage, that involved using chemicals to turn vinegar wine into table quality. President Clinton had his share of gates — probably the most famous was Monicagate. I also remember his pardoning of about 140 people on his last day in office, including Patty Hearst — that generated Pardongate. Jimmy Carter lived through Billygate when it was determined that his brother, Billy, legally represented the Libyan government as a foreign agent. A year or so ago when New Jersey governor Chris Christie’s administration shut down toll lanes on the George Washington Bridge it didn’t make front page news until it was dubbed “Bridgegate.” I suppose that in today’s world there’s tons of headlines every day competing for our attention — use of the ‘gate’ moniker is intended to grab out attention.

We used to think of gates in terms of livestock gates, baby gates, garden gates, or even logic gates — but not anymore — when we hear ‘gate’ we almost immediately think of scandal. I’m pretty sure the original word or term ‘gate’ is in no way related to scandal. Most suffixes have some grounding, like a Greek or Latin origin — as far as I can tell, not so with ‘gate.’

Actually, if you think about it, since the Watergate scandal was about what occurred in the Watergate Hotel/Complex, and not about the “water” it would seem to make more sense to refer to the whole thing as “Watergategate.” It’s funny how we mess around with our language…..
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Since this topic seems to have topped the news for the past week and everybody else has weighed in on it, I guess I might as well mention it here. Of course I’m talking about that very serious, potentially catastrophic practice of deflation. In case you’ve been under a rock or something for the past few days, you probably know that the New England Patriots are accused of under inflating some footballs. The articles I’ve read seem to indicate that this matter will have to go before a grand jury and a special prosecutor will be named any day now. This “gate” may turn out to be bigger than Watergate — this is football you know, and more importantly it’s Super Bowl.

Before I go on, let me make it clear that I’m not a fan of the New England Patriots, or the Seattle Seahawks — the participants in this year’s Super Bowl. I remain loyal to the Redskins and the Browns, neither of which have ever cheated. (If they did cheat, they’re not any better at that than picking quarterbacks, or anything else — their records speak for themselves.)

But back to Deflate-gate — the news coverage is being handled just like a big-time political scandal. I suspect that this incident is receiving more publicity because it involves the Patriots. I’m guessing that most of the media don’t care much for Bill Belichick, the Patriots coach — probably because he doesn’t spend a lot of time answering the news media’s stupid questions. Every good scandal needs a villain, and Belichick is perfect for the role.

Now I’m not in favor of a team cheating to get into the Super Bowl, but is seems that these improperly inflated balls have received more press than Ray Rice’s elevator punch, or the rampant misuse of steroids in the NFL.

So the media isn’t going to give up on this controversy until it’s been beaten to death, or, something better comes along. I guess it’s worth pointing out that the Patriots squeaked by the Colts by 45-7. The Colts might have pulled the game out if those balls had been pumped up just a bit more…..
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I read an article today that listed the most popular passwords for 2014. In case you didn’t see it, here’s the list:

123456           password          12345           12345678          qwerty          123456789
1234                baseball            football        1234567             monkey        letmein
abc123            111111                 mustang      access                 shadow        master
michael           superman         696969        123123               batman        trustno1

I have to admit that these are pretty lame, but this whole password thing is getting out of hand. Most Internet sites that insist on a password ( and more and more and more of them do) require that the password contain seven or eight characters, with numbers, special symbols and/or capitalization — and — you’re supposed to have a different password for each site.
(One thing I’ve noticed is that even though these sites all require you to rack your brain to come up with unique passwords, that you usually forget and have to click on that little “forget your password?” box, all the sites ask you the same recovery questions, like where did you go to school, what’s your mother’s maiden name, what was your first car…. seems like they want you to be creative, but don’t impose that restriction on themselves. Just sayin…)

But back to passwords. I understand the Internet is a dangerous place and people want my stuff, and these are bad people that want it and all that. I do get it. That’s the reason I don’t put anything on my computer that I wouldn’t share with anyone — even the bad guys.
I realize that in today’s world, we’re pretty much forced to do some things online — we have to get our bank statements online, for instance. We do take the proper precautions with those passwords, but Facebook (for example) pretty much has the same password restrictions. I rarely use Facebook and have less personal information on it than in the local telephone book (yea, we still get one.) So I really don’t care who sees my page.
I’m much more concerned with someone hacking into our bank’s database than I am of them stealing my password. My opinion is that the whole password system is flawed and messy — you’d think there ought to be a better way if all these web sites are going to force us to protect ourselves.

As far as picking passwords, everyone has their own method — I always thought •••••••• would be a good password, since that’s what I always see when the password is entered. There’s an old blonde joke that during a password audit, the blonde was using the password: “MickeyMineyPlutoHueyLouieDeweyDonaldGoofyColumbus” — when she was asked why such a long password, she said she was told that it has to be at least 8 characters long and include at least one capital.

I’m kind of the opinion that i should be able to choose/use whatever password I want — I’d be willing to sign some sort of a waiver of liability, but that’s not the way the system operates. It’s pretty incredible that with all the advances in technology, digital security still relies on my mother’s maiden name or the street I grew up on….
Aren’t you glad you don’t need a password to read this blog?
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I don’t check Facebook very often, but a day or so ago I noticed our nephew, John, had referenced an article about time — it essentially said that people aren’t just “running late,” they’re basically just rude and inconsiderate. I absolutely couldn’t agree more. We all know people that are consistently late for everything; most of them think it’s cute, or it emphasizes how important they are.

I’ve written about time before in this blog, so I won’t discuss the same things again, but the posting on Facebook got me to thinking — about time, you might say. Time is viewed quite differently by Eastern and Western cultures and even different by various countries within these cultures. In America, time is truly money; in other countries, not so much. Anyone that’s traveled understands those different attitudes….

We all pretty much have an idea what time is, but in fact there has never been an acceptable scientific definition of it. We really don’t know how time works. Time only goes forward — never back. We remember the past, but we can’t remember the future. When did time start? I’m pretty sure it didn’t start with the Big Bang, if there was a Big Bang.

Anyhow, this time thing, including time travel, is way too complicated for me. But I’m glad we have time — if we didn’t have time, a good time couldn’t be had by all, or we couldn’t have a race against time, or a stitch in time and we couldn’t be ahead of one’s time. We’d stay up all night because there would be no bedtime and everyone wants to be in the right place at the right time, and most of us wish for better luck next time. I’m not sure you can actually buy time, but you can buy on time and if you don’t pay on time, you’ll possibly do time. Most politicians want face time, but in fact they give the public a hard time and some of them are (hopefully) on borrowed time. Postcards at vacation spots already have “having a wonderful time – wish you were here” printed on them… and as the song says, does anyone really know what time it is? Well, there’s no time like the present.

So even though we can’t scientifically define it, we just couldn’t get along without time. I once heard it said that God created time so everything wouldn’t happen at once. I guess I can go with that until I hear a better definition. They say lost time is never found again, and in case you’re wondering why I’m wasting my time writing this, just remember the time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time….
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Many (both) of you faithful readers are familiar with the history of this blog. Initially, we created a family web site with the intention of it being the “place to go” to find out about family activities, family recipes, and just generally what was going on with the family — both the Stracensky and Williamson sides… Well, that didn’t work out so well, only a very few family members ever checked the site and even fewer contributed any content. In fairness, a lot of both families weren’t comfortable being around a computer. So it was a good idea, just not practical.

Anyhow, after we decided the web site was a lost cause, I’d become accustomed to sitting down in front of the computer on a daily basis and updating the site. I missed that time with the computer and decided to start a blog. That was back in March of 2007 and at that time I didn’t know exactly what a blog even was (still don’t.)
The blog was titled “In My Own Write,” with the sub-title of “Jimmy’s Thoughts — and Not Yours.” If you’re wondering where this is going, hang in there, I’m about to tell you.

The original intent was for the blog to replace the Family Web Site and write about family events and activities, but being here in West Virginia and the families in (mostly) Ohio and Oklahoma the pipeline of information didn’t provide much data. So — the blog evolved into me just writing down whatever happened to be on my mind when I decided to make a new entry.
After four years and seven months and approximately 267 entries, “In My Own Write” came to an end on November 18, 2011. A few days later, I started a new blog with the title, “What Would Jimmy Do.” That, of course, is what you’re reading now. Not a lot has changed, except for the format — that’s been simplified a bit and, if I choose, I can make entries from my iPad or iPhone. But the content remains varied, questionable, confusing, current, out-dated, serious, humorous, reflective, or any other adjective you choose, but almost always opinionated.

I promised to tell you where this is going — at Christmas Kelly, Chris and Emily gave me a book entitled “In My Own Write.” My original blog has now turned into a book! I’m pretty sure it’s not in all the bookstores yet, so it may be a special order. So now I can add ‘author’ to all my other accomplishments… It’s not that I haven’t written a book before, but most were of the instructional variety. This is the first one about nothing. If the blog entries fall off, I may be out at a book-signing….
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Sometimes after playing golf or just visiting with a group of friends, the subject of government comes up. My participation in these discussions is usually limited to an occasional comment, but mostly I just listen. There are three or four very good reasons that I limit my contribution — maybe I’ll talk about those here some time later. Anyhow, the consensus is that government is “all screwed up” and people in general don’t trust the government.

The forces contributing to the (current) wave of distrust include, but aren’t limited to, an uncertain economic environment, overwhelming discontent with Congress and elected officials in general, and a prevailing partisan environment. During the final House debate over health care reform, the public perception of Congress reached an all-time low. Generally speaking, the public’s impressions of elected officials are that they are corrupt, wasteful, self-serving, unwilling to compromise, and indifferent to the concerns of the general public.

But the fact is that dissatisfaction with government predates the health care debate and the Obama presidency. Down through the years, government and people’s perception of government hasn’t changed that much. Hating Congress (and the government in general) is a beloved American tradition. To confirm my suspicions, I did some extensive research and here’s some actual quotes from people you’ve probably at least heard of over the years. I didn’t make this up — they’re actual quotes — you can look them up yourself…. I’m pretty sure lots, if not most Americans, would agree with them today.
One of the more famous quotes comes from Mark Twain, “Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”

I couldn’t determine when the first quote, joke or slam of the government occurred, but they started long ago…
“Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.” — Pericles (430 B.C.)
“We hang petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.” — Aesop
“A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.” — George Bernard Shaw
“A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.” — Thomas Jefferson
“Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.” — P.J. O’Rourke (Civil Libertarian)
“In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm and three or more is a government.” — John Adams
“Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.” — Douglas Casey (Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University)

Some of these quotes are funny, some are profound, but pretty much all of them speak some amount of truth. I don’t disagree that the government certainly has room for improvement —it’s always gone through highs and lows, hopefully we’re just in one of the lows now. I’ve traveled and lived in a good part of the world — I never entertained the thought of “settling down” in any other country. The grass isn’t always greener — grass is still grass. This country is still great — of course it could be greater if we could come up with more unemployed politicians.
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Another holiday to add to the Williamson Family Calendar….

Happy second (month) birthday to our grandson, Locke!!
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Ok — here we are charging into the new year. New Year’s Day has come and gone and in case you didn’t know, that is the most celebrated holiday around the world. As you faithful readers are aware, I’m a big fan of holidays. Every month has a number of holidays and January is no exception. Each month has even come to be known for “something,” like Black History Month, or Breast Cancer Awareness Month. January has been designated as the “official” month for the following: National Book Month, National Thank You Month, National Eye Care Month, National Volunteer Blood Donor Month and National Soup Month. You notice that I said “official.” How does a holiday or cause become official? The short answer is that lots of variables can enter in to making a day or month official, but for a holiday to become a national holiday, it literally takes an act of Congress.

Congress has the power to declare something a federal holiday (little different than a national holiday.) There are only 11 federal holidays because it’s expensive – government workers don’t work on federal holidays. My extensive research found that more than 1,100 proposals for federal holidays have been floated by various congressmen over the last 30 years. Some wanted a Native Americans’ Day or a Susan B. Anthony Day — some wanted things like World Leprosy Day, Fanny Pack Day or Yell “fudge” at the Cobras Day… (you elected these people.)

The 11 national/federal holidays legally only apply to federal employees and the District of Columbia. Neither the President or Congress has the authority to impose holidays on the States — each state determines its individual legal holidays.

In spite of the fact that there seems to be a movement against the practice, many holidays are religious in nature. I feel sorry for atheists — they have very few, if any holidays.

Then of course, there’s me — if you’ve followed this blog over the years you know that I regularly celebrate holidays that most others don’t. I won’t provide an extensive list because some years I add new holidays and delete some others. Since I retired, it’s become easier to take the day off and just celebrate rather than work. Just ignore those that say I’ve always done that, even before I retired.
So today, I’ve declared a holiday here in Shepherdstown. We’re celebrating the fact that on January 4, 1790 George Washington delivered the very first State of the Union address.
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Now that all the New Year’s Eve celebrations are over and the hurtie heads are getting better, I got to thinking about those celebrations… A lot of communities around us and, I think, nationwide have “non-traditional” New Year’s Eve parties, referred to as “First Night” celebrations. These kinds of celebrations have been going on for about 40 years — I’ve never been to one and have always wondered about the name — since it’s held on the last night of the year, it should be called Last Night instead of First Night. I suppose you could make the argument that it’s really celebrating the start of the new year rather than the ending of the old one… but it still seems a little strange to me.

According to my extensive research results, First Night is a North American artistic and cultural celebration held on New Year’s Eve, taking place from afternoon until midnight. The first First Night originated in Boston on December 31, 1975, organized by a small group of artists looking for an alternative way of celebrating New Year’s Eve. They envisioned an event where Boston’s young, innovative artists and musicians could perform and also avoid the emphasis on alcohol that is common at New Year’s Eve parties. Other cities picked up on the trend and by 1999 these celebrations were being held in more than 250 cities.

Anyhow, the more I think about it, first does have a more positive connotation than last. Do you remember your first car? Your first ride in an airplane? First foreign country you visited? First live concert you ever attended? Your first grade teacher?

Generally speaking, those first things stick in your mind and are generally fond memories. As for last, not so much. Do you remember the last time you typed something on a typewriter? The last time you used a dial telephone (or even one with a cord?) Do you remember the last time you saw cigarettes advertised on TV? Do you remember the last movie you watched on a videocassette? Do you remember the last time you sent or received a telegram?

All “firsts” are not good — likewise with all “lasts.” The “first’ World War wasn’t good, and neither was the “last” soldier killed in that war — but it was good that he was the “last.”
So this isn’t my first blog entry this year and, hopefully, not my last….
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