Humor

To An Ungrateful Steve Jobs

(Originally posted in the Stratford Star newspaper on September 22, 2011, and in the Fairfield Sun on September 29, 2011, both in my  “Walsh’s Wonderings” column.)

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This was written after Steve Jobs announced his retirement as head of Apple, but before he passed away.

I deserve better than this, Steve. We go way back, after all: Remember when “going to the Dark Side” meant using a Windows product? How quaint. Now Microsoft is the kid brother who tries to tag along wherever you go.

Have you forgotten our history? I was weaned on your Apple II computers at Tomlinson Junior High, those beige metal boxes that had all the computing power of today’s Hallmark cards. You were my first, a DOS programming experience that resulted in games where players were faced with ever-worsening options to avoid an inevitably gruesome death. You had me hooked despite your lack of graphics or your white typeface on that daunting black screen. Like dogs, Apple never computed in color.

By comparison, my brother’s IBM PCjr was a white monstrosity that took up our entire desk and weighed almost thirty pounds. Simply clicking on the keyboard made the tabletop wobble like a cartoon chicken. My dad, who’d only recently ushered in the technology era for the Walsh household with a surprise Atari purchase at Christmas, made me fall in love with you all over again when he bought the first Macintosh computer. Apple had changed the game by replacing the black screen/white typeface with… (wait for it) blue screen/black typeface. Still, it was a fraction of the size of the IBM, didn’t require DOS programming to run commands, and it had a mouse. It didn’t do much, but it made a nice clicking noise that sounded like progress.

I’ll admit I’ve had my doubts about you over the years. When my brother brought home the Macintosh II, I felt like the stodgy nun watching Whoopi Goldberg singing and dancing around the convent. Who needed all those pictures, all that color? Computers were for coding. If you wanted flash, watch TV! I stuck with your more pedestrian fare, sinking the last of my student loan money into one of your PowerBook 100 laptops. With a screen the size of my iPhone and the processing speed of my cocker spaniel, it allowed me the freedom to wait for the 10-minute boot-up procedure any place I chose… as long as it came before the 30-minute battery died. All this without all that troublesome color.

Like Leo DeCaprio and Kate Winslet in Titanic, we clung to each other in a sea of technological change as Bill Gates turned Windows into the industry standard. Companies simply stopped making software for Apple computers. You swore you’d never let go… until you did. When you left Apple, I left. I bought my first Windows computer shortly thereafter, feeling dirty and alone. In the nineties, the dwindling pool of knuckle-draggers who clung to their Macs were mocked much like Betamax users were a decade before.

Unlike Leo, however, you did come back. You tried to woo me with the glitzy iMac and G4 Cube, but it was your iPod that reminded me what we once had together. In an act of surrender that would make Winslet proud, I’ve given myself completely to you over these past ten years, with iPods leading to iMacs leading to iPhones leading to iPads. I have shown you the monogamy you failed to uphold when you first left in 1985, only to see that you’re leaving me again with unfinished business. When you announced your resignation last month, you renounced the ability to right the wrong you have committed against me these last four years: the butchering of my very name.

If you, like me, have succumbed to the charms of Jobs and his iPhone, you can see for yourself: Every time I write “Rob” in my texts, it is changed to “Ron” using auto-correct. I know there are other Robs out there who feel as I do, mainly that Rons are not important enough to merit this “correction.” I mean, outside of the occasional Weasley, Howard, Popeil or MacDonald, how many famous Rons have there been? Robs are not only better represented throughout history, but the word itself functions as both a proper noun AND a verb! Defined in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language as, “To deprive unjustly of something belonging to, desired by, or legally due someone,” it’s clear I deserve better at your hands, Steve. Don’t rob me of my name.

Regardless, I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors. Yours truly,

Ron

Continue ReadingTo An Ungrateful Steve Jobs

Dynamite In The Wrong Hands

(Originally posted in the Stratford Star newspaper on August 25, 2011, in “Walsh’s Wonderings”)

“It’s not fair!” whined the little boy as he tore from his mother’s grip. “Everybody else has an iPad or a Nook; why do I have to use a stupid Kindle? It’s not even in color!” He jammed an e-reader back onto the shelf, knocking the “Back to School” sign off in the process, before his mother managed to wrangle him out of the electronics department. She kept apologizing to him, asking him to realize how much it cost, even as she dragged him out of the store. A few of the other customers exchanged condescending glances, but I understood the moment all too well: it was Dynamite magazine all over again.

When I was that kid’s age, I was going into 6th grade at Timothy Dwight School. Among the many rites of September was the magical hour when the teacher would spread the Scholastic Arrow Book Club sheets on the tables before us, inviting us into the world of reading through a series of tiny checkboxes we’d fill out in pencil. We could order any book or magazine we’d like, provided we came in later that week with the cash or check from home. The teacher would give a short summary of each magazine and show us a few sample issues. Alas, like Wyle E. Coyote, I only had eyes for Dynamite.

Dynamite was a glossy magazine for children that fed us popular culture in elementary school bits: think People magazine on training wheels. It featured the biggest stars of the day on its covers without the girlish stigma of Tiger Beat or the amateurish camp of Bananas. Before the days of cable TV and the internet, magazines had cache. In short: if you were cool, you got your copy of Dynamite each month in the big brown box the teacher lugged from the staff room. If you weren’t cool, you waited to be handed your free copy of Junior Scholastic.

Not that there’s anything wrong with Junior Scholastic, mind you, just as there’s nothing wrong with a free VD shot or buying ramen noodles in bulk. It contained the news of the day in digest form, followed by a series of reading comprehension questions and quick quizzes or word searches. It was supposed to make current events fun, a form of Flintstones chewable vitamins meant to cover up the aftertaste of Walter Cronkite. The good folks at Scholastic carefully chewed up the news before regurgitating their monthly cocktail into our eager 6th grade hands, their cover stories bearing headlines like, “Understanding The Hostage Crisis” or “The SALT Treaty and You.” If Dynamite magazine was dinner and drinks with Alec Baldwin, Junior Scholastic was jumping bail with Daniel Baldwin.

In addition to Magic Wanda’s page of tricks, the Good Vibrations advice column, Count Morbida’s puzzles, the Bummers page (adolescent bits of satire that always began with, “Don’t you hate it when…”), or the occasional pull-out poster, Dynamite’s crack staff of journalists touched upon the truly important topics of our time. One need only review these actual headlines from my sixth grade year in 1979/1980 to appreciate the coverage. September: “Face to Face With Erik Estrada.” October: “Gary Coleman, TV’s Little Big Man.” November: “The Dukes of Hazzard.” December: “Steve Martin, A Wild and Crazy Guy!” January: “Mork and His New Pals!” February: “Buck Rogers, Then and Now!” March: “Live From New York: It’s Gilda Radner!” April: “BJ and The Bear, A Special Talk with Greg Evigan!” May: “Benji, Hollywood’s Top Dog!” June: “Meet John Schneider!”  After December, all the headlines ended in exclamation points (!) and sent a clear signal to every child that something truly wild and crazy was going on between those covers.

My mom was immune to Dynamite’s charms, however, and no amount of pleading would convince her to part with the requisite subscription money. Much like the cold-hearted witch who’d refused her growing boy’s desperate petition for a decent e-reader (the one he has isn’t even color, for goodness sake), my mother was content to see me locked in a cell of cultural ignorance that haunts me to this day. The headlines I saw when I peeked over to my classmates’ desks offered a glimpse into a world I’d never know. “The Bee Gees vs. The Beatles! Who’s The Greatest?” (I was never told.) “Dynamite Spends A Happy Day With Scott Baio!” (I was never invited.) “Meet Rick Springfield!” (To this day, I have yet to do so.)

Lady, if you’re reading this, spring for the kid’s Nook. Don’t rob him of the intimate, backstage knowledge of the Jonas Brothers latest tour lest he grow up and regret his ignorance for the rest of his life. There are some holes you just don’t fill. Worse yet, he might become even more obnoxious and someday write a column about it.

On a side note, I’d like to apologize to my mom for most every back-to-school shopping trip we ever took.

Continue ReadingDynamite In The Wrong Hands

Fending Off The Inevitable

(Originally posted in the Stratford Star newspaper on August 11, 2011, in “Walsh’s Wonderings”)

The moment you realize you’ve slowly become your parents is always a surprise; my moment arrived when I told my wife we’d joined a boat club. While I’d never made a secret of my desire to get out on the water, she reacted the same way my mom had years ago when my dad announced he’d just bought the family a boat. An odd smile formed on her lips as if forced to appear at gunpoint.

“Really?” she said. Just like Mom once did. “That’s interesting.”

Women are smarter than men; all the women in my life, at least. In the second week of August, however, the brutal heat and humidity of Fairfield County can lead otherwise reasonable men to ignore the wisdom of these women and seek refuge in the comforting arms of material excess. For some it’s a red convertible, for others a shiny new motorcycle; for the Walsh family, it’s always been boats.

Growing up, my six brothers and sisters and I were prisoners of the thermostat. Because my dad didn’t “believe” in air conditioning any more than he believed in swimming pools or Bigfoot, the summer heat reduced us to boneless, moist clumps of flesh draped over the couches like melted chocolate. When he told us about the boat, we felt as if Moses were leading us out of the desert. My mom stood stoically to one side, no doubt mouthing a silent rosary in anticipation of the future headaches in store. While my dad was trying to recapture his glory days in the navy, my mom would be saddled with the practical realities involved in readying seven kids for an afternoon on the water with this unapologetic perfectionist who’d never owned his own boat before. While he climbed up the tiny flybridge to steer, it was she who’d have to cram the brown bag lunches, sunblock, blankets, and seven kids into the tiny galley below deck every time it rained.

When we arrived at the Housatonic marina for our maiden voyage, we caught our first glimpse of the new (used) twenty-four foot cabin cruiser—or at least what had been one in a previous life. It bobbed sadly in between the majestic boats on either side, as lifeless as the floating bunker fish that surrounded it. These being the days before they cleaned up Long Island Sound, this was a far cry from “sailing the ocean blue.” My mom’s eyes began to tear up, but I couldn’t tell if it was the smell of the fish, low tide, or the sight of the boat.

Dad christened his dream boat “The Irish,” a loving nod to our family heritage, ignoring the somewhat checkered maritime history of the Irish themselves. He’d soon discover the irony. Out of necessity, my dad required that we immerse ourselves in nautical jargon. There was no front or back of the boat; only “fore” and “aft;” no left or right side, only “port” or “starboard.” We learned quickly not to speak of the “bathroom,” and even quicker not to complain about it. “It’s not supposed to be comfortable,” he’d explain. “It’s called the ‘head’ for a reason—now use your head next time so you don’t have to go to the bathroom on the boat.” When the “head” wasn’t working (which was pretty much the entire time we owned the boat), he suggested we “go for a swim” if we couldn’t hold out until we returned to the dock. Needless to say, the Walsh kids rarely swam too close to one another in those days, just in case.

As the summer wore on, my dad demanded we leave earlier and earlier for our trips on the Sound. Most assumed this was a practical matter: when something went wrong (as it often did), it dramatically reduced the time we had to wait to get towed back into shore. The Coast Guard was always very friendly as we chatted on the short ride in: “We didn’t know the radio was broken until we tried to get help, after we figured out the sonar was broken, after we hit the sand bar.”

The real reason was simpler: The Irish had no reverse gear, and my dad didn’t want anyone to see what we were doing to their boats as we left the docks. My brothers and I would line up on either side of the boat and push it out of its slip, inevitably bouncing off the boats to either side in the process. “Fend off!” my dad would scream, each of us assuming he must have been talking to the others. It turns out that “fend off” means to keep pushing the boat away from the other boats, but we just assumed that’s what the bumpers were for. Putting the Irish to sea was like playing a giant game of bumper cars, only with more cursing and a lot more smoke. One could be forgiven for assuming the Walshes were shoveling coal for fuel with that giant black cloud billowing from the engine.

Things weren’t much better coming back into dock, but we grew adept at pulling ourselves into the slip by grabbing the boats to either side. It was awkward if their owners were on board, but we smiled our way through it. Each trip was followed by a total scrub-down of the boat, nine people worn by hours on the water in cramped quarters now secretly humming “It’s A Hard Knocks Life” and praying for rain the next week. After two seasons of fending off the inevitable, the Irish came to permanent dock in our back yard, killing a large patch of grass underneath in symbolism so strong I am almost reluctant to include it here.

Still, on a sweltering August afternoon, I can’t help but think it might be time to get a boat. Maybe if it’s cheaper than the convertible, my wife will let me.

Continue ReadingFending Off The Inevitable

Fun with Footprints

(Originally posted in the Stratford Star newspaper on July 14, 2011, in “Walsh’s Wonderings”)

Earlier this month, Canada joined France, Japan and Russia by refusing to extend the Kyoto Protocol, which seeks to limit the emissions of industrialized countries (the US reiterated at a recent G8 dinner that it would continue to fight for climate change “outside the Protocol”). Poor and emerging economies wanted to extend the pact, but the departure of these big countries at U.N. climate talks that ran from June 6th to June 17th in Bonn, Germany, have cast a pall over the Green movement. While I respect how important “green” sustainable living is to the future of our planet, the infancy of this movement makes for great comedy.

Take carbon offsets, for example. A carbon offset is a reduction in the emissions of greenhouse gases or any carbon dioxide equivalent in order to make up the emissions made somewhere else. In other words, my wife guilts me into buying and planting trees to make up for the fact that I bought an SUV six years ago. In theory, they bridge the gap between what we should do and what we will do. In practice, however, they can be ridiculous. Rather than doing the hard work of capping harmful emissions, companies turn to carbon offsets as sinners do to the Catholic confessional: do what you like, but one visit to the priest absolves all sins. Unlike your spiritual salvation, however, you don’t need to wait long to see if it worked; former vice president Al Gore gives you the dispensation immediately (especially if you work for Generation Investment Management, a company Al Gore co-founded in 2004 that buys carbon offsets for all its employees).

The logic defies me. The next time I go out to eat, I will respond to my doctor’s concerns about my weight with, “I’ll order all the food I want, but I’ll also make sure to buy my dog a big salad. That way, it’s almost like I ate what I was supposed to, and not like the bloated pig I’ve become.” Even better, carbon offsets are now treated as a commodity. The Kyoto Protocol sanctioned offsets as a way for governments and private companies to earn carbon credits that could be traded in the global marketplace. The protocol established the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), a watchdog that ensures “real” benefits as a result of the actions taken. In my case, I can store up the “credits” I created when I was forced to eat a salad after I’d run out of pizza last weekend and really go hog wild before the next tailgate. I haven’t worked out the math yet, but I’m thinking one salad offsets about 6,000 calories. God I love healthy living.

Luckily, the creators of the Kyoto Protocol are not as dumb as I am, so surely they had a better way to get the word out to the public before the initiative began. After setting these important standards, the next logical step was to seek out high-profile backers such as Al Gore to create… the 2007 Live Earth Benefit for Climate Protection. Musicians from all over the world performed to raise awareness of the climate crisis by… creating a small climate crisis. You might remember the 7-7-07 advertisements, or maybe you just remember a string of really bad musicians preaching about turning the lights off when you leave the room. In the pantheon of benefit concerts, it registers somewhere alongside the 2003 Pack 13 Polka Marathon Boy Scout Benefit.

First of all, if you can’t get Bono for your benefit concert, you have to know something’s wrong. He is to “important shows” what Elton John is to celebrity funerals. Even that desiccated corpse from the Boomtown Rats, Bob Geldof, complained, “We are all (expletive deleted) conscious of global warming.” Did the guy who created Live Aid and “Do They Know It’s Christmas” just bitch-slap Al Gore?

Bob and Bono must have seen the p.r. avalanche coming: more than 150 performers flew more than 222,000 miles around the world to appear in concerts from Tokyo to Hamburg, many carrying their own dancers, crew members, hair stylists, etc. As an estimated two billion people watched or listened during the 24-hour concert, MSN streamed 30 million videos of the concert to over 8 million people around the globe. Assuming the typical computer uses 100-140 watts in addition to the 35 watts of a typical 17-inch display, and the average of 5 videos each lasted for the length of a typical Scissor Sisters song, you’re talking, like… many, many hundreds and thousands of energy (I was told there’d be no math).

The final tally from the “Live Earth Carbon Assessment and Footprint Report” was actually 19,708 tons of emissions. At 5-30 dollars per ton to offset, that’s… you know, I don’t know what the hell that is. What is a credit? Where do you get them, and for how much? Even my dog has looked up from his salad for this one.

It was fitting that the “have your cake and eat it, too” idea of carbon offsets was highlighted by the biggest collection of mediocre musicians in music history. What better way to promote a lighter carbon footprint than by headlining your show with Madonna, one of the world’s worst offenders at an estimated 1,018 tons of emissions per year while on tour according to John Buckley, managing director of CarbonFootprint.com.

In short, Live Earth was like hosting a wet t-shirt contest to encourage women’s rights. While the organizers did realize their goal of “zero net impact,” it probably wasn’t what they had in mind. Now the Kyoto Protocol seems destined for the same fate, and one can’t help hoping someone else will come along with a bigger footprint and a clearer plan to get us all moving in the right direction.

Continue ReadingFun with Footprints

Homemade Holidays

(Originally posted in the Stratford Star newspaper on June 30, 2011, in “Walsh’s Wonderings”)

I had an interesting conversation with some eighth graders the other day—yes, it can be done. They outlined their summer vacation plans in relation to two national holidays that bookend their seven-week break: the 4th of July and Labor Day. As they spoke of the coming academic year, they continued to use holidays as the milestones with which to mark important events.

I find it sad that they see the days ahead as a small number of “important” dates in a sea of “filler days.” It’s like the people who celebrate “hump-day” every Wednesday because it’s halfway to the weekend, an outlook that reduces five days of the week to drudgery in the hopes they’ll enjoy the final two. What a rotten ratio.

Of course, as a teacher, I’m constantly planning my instructional units against the holiday calendar. I’ve been around long enough to know I have to finish a unit before vacation, otherwise the Magic Troll robs my students of all memories of what I taught them before the break. During the school year alone, we have Labor Day, Columbus Day, Halloween, Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Day, Groundhog Day (okay, a bit of a stretch), Valentine’s Day, President’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, April Fools Day (even more of a stretch unless you’re a middle school teacher), Mother’s Day, Memorial Day, and Father’s Day. This list doesn’t even include other religious holidays such as Easter, Passover, and others that don’t coincide with winter or spring breaks. No wonder our children begin to think in terms of “important” days and “other” days. Shouldn’t every day be important?

What we need is a way to turn those “filler days” into “killer days” (and no, Walt Disney Corporation, you can’t steal that for your next promotion). Take today: Thursday, June 30th. Nothing special, unless you happen to celebrate Meteor Day, an observance of the 1908 Tunguska Comet Impact in Siberia, Russia… and who doesn’t? However, there are too many interesting things about this date to saddle it with such a pedestrian name. Three great Americans were born on this day: former heavyweight boxing champ Mike Tyson in 1966, actress Christine Taylor in 1971, and swimmer Michael Phelps in 1985. One of these three is a drop-dead, stone cold fox. I’ll give you a hint: it isn’t Mike Tyson. Speaking of Mike Tyson, on this date in 1960, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho opened. Speaking of Psycho, in 1994 the US Ice Skating Federation barred Tonya Harding for life. See how special this day is already?

In fact, June 30th is chock-a-block with interesting moments: in 1865, eight conspirators in the assassination of Lincoln were found guilty; in 1914, Mahatma Gandhi’s was arrested for the first time; in 1936, Margaret Mitchell’s published her novel Gone With the Wind, which logically led to the 1952 debut of the TV soap opera Guiding Light. In 1974, Soviet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov defected to Canada. (His answer to the hit FOX program So You Think You Can Dance? “Yes. Yes, I do.”)

Unfortunately, some events from this day can’t count because they’re already associated with a holiday. For instance, on June 30, 1962, Dodgers pitcher Sandy Koufax pitched his first no-hitter against the Mets (Veteran’s Day); on this day in 1936, the federal government approved a 40-hour work week (Labor Day); and on this sunny June day in 1975, Cher married rock star Gregg Allman just three days after divorcing Sonny Bono (April Fool’s Day).

Other out-of-this-world events include the 1995 release of Tom Hanks’ Apollo 13 (with its catchphrase, “Houston, we have a problem”), which occurred 34 years to the day after the Explorer 12 rocket failed to reach Earth orbit. Exactly ten years after that, three Soviet cosmonauts died when their spacecraft depressurized during re-entry. Eleven years later, the doomed space shuttle Challenger rolled off the assembly line for delivery to Edwards Air Force Base. In short, let’s avoid any future June 30th launches.

There were other tragedies on this day as well: In 1520, Montezuma II, the last Aztec emperor, was murdered as Spanish conquistadors fled the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. June 30, 2003, saw the death of comedian Buddy Hackett, a man with whom my wife shared an uncanny (and unfortunate) resemblance as a child. Worst of all, who can forget that dark day on June 30, 1985, when the creator of the Twinkie, James A. Dewar, shed his mortal coil. Coincidently, this was the same day the atomic clock (the world’s official timekeeper) ticked off one extra “leap second” to compensate for the gradual slowing of the Earth’s rotation. If you were having a bad day that day, you could be forgiven for thinking it lasted longer than usual. That is, unless your name was James Dewar, in which case it wouldn’t have mattered.

There are many other important June 30th events in history, but I rarely paid attention in social studies. Yes, I neglected to mention that this date saw the majestic rise of New Kids On The Block (their single “Step by Step” shot to #1 on both the US and UK charts), but some stuff I just have to assume everybody already knows. The important thing is that we can make any day a holiday with a little research and a homemade holiday name.

After careful analysis of all the historic events that happened on this day, there is only one logical name for June 30th on the calendar: Christine Taylor Appreciation Day! (C’mon, you saw this coming a mile away—she was Marsha in the Brady Bunch movies. Duh!)

Continue ReadingHomemade Holidays

The Flowers of Graduation

(Originally posted in the Stratford Star newspaper on June 16, 2011, in “Walsh’s Wonderings”)

Tis the season for high school reunions—I can tell by the sheer number of messages sprayed onto car windows with shaving cream and cake frosting. I need to see through my windows as I drive, however, so permit me to put my thoughts on paper instead.

To Graduating Students: Congratulations! As you stand in line to get your diploma, take a moment to remember that first frightened walk to your kindergarten seat so many years ago. How did you end up here, a refugee from an Elton John video, dressed in a frumpy gown and funny hat as you fuss over a tassel? You’ve come a long way, baby. Now, the bad news: you haven’t really learned anything important yet. High school teaches you how to learn, but the real world doesn’t care about the area of an isosceles triangle. Instead, now you’ll be expected to be open enough to learn what really matters. I like how Cambridge University puts this in perspective, referring to its graduation day as General Admission. That degree you just received is a ticket, nothing more. Which show you go to, and how much you enjoy it, is up to you. Choose wisely.

If you’d allow me to offer a bit of advice about handling this big day, I’d ask you to thank the family and friends that helped you get to this point.  Too often we wait for important occasions to show our full appreciation to the ones we love, then forget to do so amid the distractions of the day. It’s a sad reality that twelve years of full-time academic study for adolescents remains unattainable for most. Your family made sacrifices to provide you this opportunity; it’s their day, too.  That means that, yes, you have to kiss Aunt Marge. It ain’t pretty, but all of us had to do it. Besides, she doesn’t give you the card with the check inside until you do.

To Parents of Graduating Students: Congratulations! Now that he’s graduating, you’re “this close” to turning Timmy’s bedroom into a yoga gym. Before you send him off to college, though, you have to shepherd him through the events surrounding the commencement. Remember that part I wrote earlier about how graduating students should remember that it’s their family’s big day, too? Forget that. This is their day, even if you have relatives and friends coming from all over the country and you’re still scrounging for additional tickets to the ceremony. Bite your tongue when your kids say that today will be the most important day of their lives; let them bemoan that this will be the last time they’ll be with all their friends as a group again. Let them enjoy their pre-nostalgia with whatever hysterics they can muster.

Don’t worry that your kids will read this and neglect the advice I gave them earlier about thanking you: I find that students won’t read anything addressed specifically to their parents unless they’re worried about getting to the mailbox first around report card time. Still, give them a break and stop Aunt Marge before she gets to her third martini.

To the Community: Congratulations! As you pick up the newspapers in the coming days, take a moment to leaf through the pages dedicated to these high school graduation ceremonies. This is where your tax money went. Notice the sense of accomplishment on those smiling faces, the sense of hope and optimism that pervades the crowd. Look into the eyes of your future doctors, lawyers, teachers, and firefighters—your future taxpayers. There was a time when we questioned the need for such large amounts of money to be spent on their education, when we discussed cutting programs and services that we hoped would not affect them too much. We now see the flower of our efforts to maintain our budgets; like the Treasury bond given as a graduation gift, our investment has matured and stands to offer an excellent return.

Whether you have children in the school system or not, these are your kids. They are your neighbors, and soon you’ll be going to them to fix your car, your taxes, or your elevated blood pressure. These graduations represent a renewed commitment to opening the doors of opportunity to those better suited to solve the messes we’ve made. It’s obvious we adults don’t have all the answers. Some of these graduates might. After all, they know the dates of the War of Portuguese Succession, how to use the quadratic formula to determine the value of x, and how to label all the parts of a bacterium cell. Maybe they can rise above petty political allegiances and finally get us to work together for the common good. With hundreds graduating in the coming weeks alone, I like our odds.

As the Nelson Mandela once wrote, “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.” I truly believe the young men and women who will be throwing their hats into the air this week will accomplish great things. To my godson, Kevin, and all the graduates of the Class of 2011, I offer my heartiest congratulations… now, get to work! My 401k isn’t going to fix itself.

Continue ReadingThe Flowers of Graduation

An Open Letter to My Neighbors

(Originally posted in the Stratford Star newspaper on June 2, 2011, in “Walsh’s Wonderings”)

I love my neighbors, at least the ones who live close enough to walk over and egg my house if they don’t like this piece. It’s the rest of you I need to speak with, so I’ll address you individually. After all, one of the advantages of having one’s own column is the ability to save on stamps.

To the guy who keeps revving his motorcycle engine at 2:30 in the morning: You’re aware of the function of a muffler, right? More than mere decoration, it’s designed to significantly reduce the sound of your exhaust. I’m not supposed to feel in my chest how well you’ve cleaned your carburetor each time you pass my window. More importantly, you were supposed to get over needless revving when you outgrew your Big Wheel. If you still feel the need to announce your presence to those of us silly enough to sleep at these hours, try putting baseball cards in the spokes of your wheels. Or cure cancer. Either way.

To the idiot who cuts through parking lots rather than waiting for the light to change: I secretly hope someone backs into you as you race through those parked cars to save that extra 60 seconds. I don’t want anyone injured, I just want your car badly dented. I know that’s horrible. I’m sorry.

To the people who still throw trash out their car windows: Is your life so tightly scheduled that you can’t hold on to that bag of Fritos long enough to find a trash can? This isn’t the Space Station—we have regular trash pickup each week, and it’s already paid for in our taxes. Did you never see the crying Native American commercials?

To the woman who jumps in front of me on the platform just before the train comes to a full stop in order to be the first one inside: Look, it’s a guessing game to stand in exactly the right spot on the platform so that the doors are directly in front of you when the train comes to a halt. We all know the rules. You guessed wrong. You can’t cheat and walk in front of the winners, the ones who spend months estimating the diminishing velocity and distance of a moving target. If you want to be first, earn it—like we did. I’m not afraid to step on your open-toed shoe.

To the guy who drives around in the Ford Crown Victoria with the standard-issue search light still bolted to the driver’s side door: Do you notice how traffic slows to a crawl wherever you go? Are you trying to give us a heart attack every time we notice you in our rear view mirrors, or is driving around in an unmarked police car just your way of fulfilling a fantasy? Unless you’re leading a search party for a missing child, you can lose the search light. And the Ford Crown Victoria. Heck, maybe you should just take the bus.

To the idiot who cuts through parking lots rather than waiting for the light to change: I know I said I was sorry earlier, but I lied. Sorry.

To the teenagers who walk across busy traffic lanes as if life was a game of “Frogger”: You should know I was always terrible at “Frogger.” That poor thing never made it past the second lane before painting the road green under the tire of an oncoming car. I wouldn’t place so much blind faith in my evasive driving skills if I were you—maybe the crosswalk isn’t such a bad idea

To the whacko who keeps ruining the barbecue by foaming at the mouth about how one party in town is determined to ruin us all: You, my friend, are part of the problem. Have a seat. Eat some cheese. Read some poetry. As my mom would say, “Have a nice bm.” Let the rest of your neighbors try to talk things out like adults.

To the woman who texts while driving, constantly slamming on the brakes just before rear-ending the car in front of her: I acknowledge how important you are—I can tell by that 1987 Dodge Caravan you’re driving. However, the rest of us have something to live for—please put off that last “OMG LOL” until you pull out in front of the idiot who cuts through parking lots rather than waiting for the light to change. You two deserve each other.

Continue ReadingAn Open Letter to My Neighbors

Monday Morning Raptureback

Say what you will about his failed Doomsday predictions, Harold Camping makes for fascinating theatre. As I wrote in my column just before Judgment Day (http://www.stratfordstar.com/opinion/my-voice/walshs-wonderings/69116-sign-of-the-end-times.html), Harold has a very healthy belief in himself—track record be damned. He’s even managed to kick it up a notch since emerging from his hobbit hole, declaring that he was right all along—lack of Rapture be damned. Turns out we’re still on for the End of Times on October 21, 2011—especially the damned.

Asked for a comment by the International Business Times on May 21 after (surprise) he was still eartbound, Camping opened his door in a Members Only jacket (he has to be the sole surviving member at this point) and asked “Just give me a day. This is a big deal, and I gotta live with… I gotta think it out.”

Addressing the media from his studios on May 23, Camping said, “If people want me to apologize I can apologize (Author’s Note: that’s not an apology). Yes, I did not have all of that worked out as accurately as I should have, or wished I could have, but that doesn’t bother me at all because I’m not a genius.”

Not a genius? Hush your mouth! You just managed to fake an apology while deploying the “I’m only human” defense for taking on the superhuman task of being God’s public relations rep. Even better, he went on to say that he really wasn’t wrong at all. He said the Rapture was to be understood spiritually, not physically. “The sense of it is still the same, that Judgment has come, that we are now under judgment where it was not prior to May 21st. Spiritually there’s a big difference in the world that we can’t detect with our eyes.”

In other words, the election results aren’t in, but all the precincts are closed. We’re just waiting for the final tally. Want proof? Well, you can’t see it with your eyes, silly, so… no. No proof for you. Instead, his Family Radio empire touts his new slogan, “We are almost there.” It reminds me of my dad as he packed my family in the station wagon for a 12-hour trek to Ohio. We’d whine, “Are we almost there, yet?” and he’d answer, “Yes.” Then we’d be in the car another four hours.

We’re in for a long ride, folks, and Harold is just ramping up. On May 3, 2009, Harold addressed a packed gym of about, oh, 24 people about Judgment Day. He spoke of carcasses being thrown into the streets and desecrated because they are under the wrath of God—who knew how excited folks would be to finally get to desecrate bodies?

Some of you might be wondering, “Why us? Why now?” First of all, quit your whining—we’re almost there. Secondly, we are being punished more than the folks from the previous 13,000 years because we were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sorry.

These are the drawbacks of being a one-man show: lone rangers have a higher probability of failure. In fact, Family Radio employee Matt Tuter told the Christian Post that Camping has actually predicted the world’s end at least ten times. Most of those predictions weren’t made public, and Tuter has pushed some would-be donors not to contribute.

Don’t worry, though, because it looks like everything is back to normal. The Family Radio website that had hosted a giant countdown to the Rapture (along with several “proofs” of our impending judgment) has been restored to its former glory. In other words, the donation button is in working order. That’s important, because Family Radio spent $100,000,000 on the billboard campaign for May 21 alone. There’s not a lot of time left to rebuild that war chest for the final ads in October. God doesn’t want us wasting our money on the needy at this juncture, and I don’t think it would “count” anyway. The polls are already closed, remember?

Now Harold can move on to the business at hand: scaring the crap out of people based on numbers he’s derived through a fantasy reading of Scripture and a pair of old Yahtzee dice. He still needs to figure out what time zone God uses, for instance. Oh, and he needs a better motel to hide in with his wife next time come October 22nd.

Regardless, all of this just further proves my long-held theory: never trust an old man with long fingernails.

 

Continue ReadingMonday Morning Raptureback

Sign of The (End) Times

"Because I know what God would say if He only could."

(Originally posted in the Stratford Star newspaper on May 19, 2011, in “Walsh’s Wonderings”)

It was a cold January morning when I drove past the Barnum Avenue billboard in Bridgeport, but its message warmed my very soul: “He is coming again! May 21, 2011.” I pulled my car to the side of the road and wept tears of joy. The message couldn’t have been any clearer: Justin Bieber must be scheduled to perform in the Arena at Harbor Yard!

My wife was the first to break the news. “It’s not Justin. They’re talking about Jesus.”

My sense of disappointment was deeper than missing out on a Bieber Experience: while meeting Jesus was something I’ve always had on my Bucket List, I was hoping it would be the last item left in the bucket. Luckily, the 21st is a Saturday—this won’t be the traffic nightmare it could have been.

Because I am a geek in addition to being somewhat dim, I looked into the organization that so crushed my heart. Turns out the man behind the sign is Harold Camping, the crusty biblical scholar that runs Family Stations, Inc., a Christian broadcast ministry based in Oakland, California. He’s the barnacle on channel 66 WFME, an impossibly frail figure whose seated biblical lectures are broadcast around the clock. This isn’t his first Armageddon rodeo. In 1992, Camping published a book titled 1994? in which he established Sept. 6, 1994, as the return date for Christ.

Oops.

He later admitted that his math might have been incorrect. This time, his logic is clearer: he has devined that the number 5 equals “atonement.” Ten is “completeness.” Seventeen means “heaven.” In an interview with Justin Berton of the San Francisco Chronicle in 2010, Camping explained how he reached his conclusion that the world will end on May 21, 2011. He determined that Christ was put on the cross on April 1, 33 A.D. It’s been 1,978 years since that day. Camping then multiplied 1,978 by 365.2422 days—the number of days in each solar year, not to be confused with a calendar year. Next, Camping noted that April 1 to May 21 encompasses 51 days. Add 51 to the sum of previous multiplication total, and it equals 722,500. Camping realized that (5 x 10 x 17) x (5 x 10 x 17) = 722,500. Or put into words: (Atonement x Completeness x Heaven), squared

“I tell ya, I just about fell off my chair when I realized that,” Camping said.

Me, too! It’s so simple I’m surprised we missed it. In his appropriately named follow-up book We Are Almost There! he presents additional Biblical evidence which points to May 21, 2011, as the date for the Rapture and October 21, 2011, as the date for the end of the world. Followers of Camping claim that around 200 million people (approximately 3% of the world’s population) will be “raptured,” or bodily pulled into the air to meet Christ upon His return. The rest of us will mope around until we realize we can finally get Giants season tickets. Alas, we’ll only get halfway through the season before Earth closes shop forever in October. Also, October 21 is a Friday, though, so expect delays on I-95.

In the meantime, we’ll have plenty of time to read the billboards as rush hour traffic slows us to a crawl. Don’t worry—traffic should clear up next week.

Continue ReadingSign of The (End) Times

As Easter Approaches

(Originally posted in the Stratford Star newspaper on April 21, 2011, in “Walsh’s Wonderings”)

This past Sunday marked the beginning of Catholicism’s “high holy days” with Palm Sunday, a day that commemorates Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem and eventual showdown with Pontius Pilate. It is one of the six Holy Days of Obligation in the Catholic Church. These mark important events that merit participation in the holy sacrifice of the Mass. On Holy Days, much like Sundays, Catholics are supposed to refrain from unnecessary work and attend church services. As a child, Palm Sunday meant three things: we got the brand new parish calendars (with the dates of all the upcoming parish league basketball games), we received our palm fronds (plastic-like, yellow-green leaves that we formed into crosses and put over our beds), and finally, that Easter Sunday was only a week away! For Catholic children who’d been forced to give up something meaningful for the 40-day Lenten season that culminates on Easter morning, this was the light at the end of the tunnel.

I grew up believing that the Easter season was chock-o-block with Holy Days and the dreaded weekday masses they entailed. My mom pulled us off playgrounds for masses on Ash Wednesday (the start of Lent which finds Catholics receiving ashes on our foreheads while praying for strength in preparation for Jesus’ death and resurrection), Holy Thursday (the day on which Jesus and his disciples have the Last Supper), and Good Friday (the day on which Jesus was killed). It was only while looking into joining the seminary after college that I learned that none of these days required us to go to mass. With seven rowdy kids on her hands, my mom kept up the ruse in a desperate attempt to save our souls through overexposure.

She also “suggested” the items we give up for Lent each year, and inevitably that meant no sweets at all. By the time Easter Sunday rolled around, the Walsh kids were irritable and jumpy in the throes of sugar withdrawal; we counted down the hours like addicts outside a methadone clinic and dreamed of the baskets of candy that waited for us upon our return home. Because my mom forbade us to touch them until after mass, we spent our morning trying not to hate the children snacking on chocolate bunnies in the pews around us.

How the crucifixion of Jesus Christ has been marketed into a festival of marshmallow chicks and egg-shaped chocolate lorded over by a giant rabbit is beyond me. Even as a child with a harelip who should have seen this animal as a role model, I saw little value in the Easter Bunny. He doesn’t even have an opposable thumb! Easter celebrates our victory–through the death and resurrection of Jesus–over eternal death, but all the Easter Bunny does is hop around and hide eggs. I was never even clear on whether the bunny was the one leaving us the candy baskets in the first place, so weak was his connection to the holiday. Still, you don’t look a gift-bunny in the mouth, especially if it means free candy.

The Lenten season culminates with the Holy Day of Ascension, commemorating the bodily elevation of Jesus up to Heaven of His own will forty days after rising from the dead. As a child, this was always the most pertinent symbol of the power of Christ, mostly because of a picture in my Junior Bible. It showed Jesus flying straight up into Heaven as his disciples watched, amazed, from the ground. Organized religion needs more pictures of their figureheads flying into space or lifting heavy objects, especially when competing with bunnies carrying baskets of peanut butter eggs.

To this day my mom can’t quite remember all the days she arbitrarily assigned to Holy Day status without Papal knowledge. More likely than not, she probably took our moral inventory and made it up as she went along if she began to fear for our eternal souls. In later years I learned the term for how my mom took us on these unannounced trips to the church for confession or extra masses: intermittent reinforcement. Because we lived in fear that we could be dragged in front of an altar at any moment, we had to make sure we kept our sinning in check.

Whether you are celebrating Easter (Christian), Mahavir Jayanti (Jain), the Theravadin New Year (Buddhist), the Lord’s Evening Meal (Jehovah’s Witness), Hanuman Jayanti (Hindu), Passover (Jewish), the First Day of Ridvan (Baha’i), or any other religious holiday during these two weeks, I wish you and yours a wonderful observance. And, if permitted, maybe a few of those peanut butter eggs…

Continue ReadingAs Easter Approaches