A Greater Principle

There are certain concepts that underlie everything in which one believes. Equality is a good example, especially for those on the political left, who seem to hold it sacrosanct above all other concerns. Obedience to God is another good example, especially for social conservatives and the religious right. I have stated many times than mine is individual rights. However, something else exists beneath the very assumptions that go into my valuation of individual rights. After all, I don't mind collectivism when people choose it. For example, a volunteer military or an athletic team don't bother me in the slightest, even though, as coaches and corporate executives are fond of reminding us, there is no, "I," in team. Furthermore, the fact that I have no issue with accepting a balance of rights and interests when it comes to individual rights means that I am open to compromise. What I am valuing above individual rights that makes me willing to compromise on them? The answer occurred to me during the recent controversy over a rape scene in the television series Game Of Thrones, which I have never seen. As one hopes you are all aware, consent is a fundamental concept underlying our modern conception of rape. Old-fashioned notions of rape relied primarily on force as the defining factor of the crime, which was and continues to be unfortunate, both because of how victims are judged and because of the fact that this tends to cause people to misunderstand the character of the evil involved in the act. Statutory rape, child molestation, date rape, bestiality, marital rape, rape facilitated by coercion, rape taking place while the victim is unconscious, and likely other forms of rape of which I am unaware, can easily be accomplished without the use of violent force and can only be acknowledged/properly understood by application of the concept of consent. Thinking about all of this led to me contemplating consent as a concept quite deeply and I realized that all of my worldview, from morality, to philosophy, to politics, to religion, to whatever else you'd care to name all stem from my insistence that consent must be given. Name any action a human being can do to another and, if a person capable of consenting consents to it, I will consider it entirely harmless. To justify this, I will need to define consent, and I'll get to that in the next paragraph. As I proceed with this piece, I will do under the assumption that I am right and that all morality and any world that wishes to call itself just should base itself on consent. While there are many things in the world about which I must confess nearly total confusion, such as the U.S. government, or things I have an inkling about where I stand but must defer to experts, such as with global warming, that consent should be a foundational principle upon which we all should be able to agree. Not everyone will agree with me, of course, but, like anyone who has come to a conclusion about anything, I do think I'm right and will proceed accordingly. 

Consent seems like a simple enough concept to define. That is deceptive. Sure, a decent enough working definition would be something like, "The state of having given permission for action to be taken directly affecting an individual." However, not everybody has the ability to give consent. This includes children (not mentally developed enough yet to give consent), animals (not intelligent enough to give consent), the mentally handicapped (lacking the wherewithal to give consent), the intoxicated or drugged (not of sound mind to give consent), anyone in a situation where not consenting isn't a viable option (self-explanatory), anyone unconscious (again, self-explanatory), and probably more exceptions I can't think of right now. In the case of children, their consent is the responsibility of their legal guardians (and that status can be revoked if abused). Other cases involve proxy to someone with power of attorney. Now, I've heard it said that sex is a woman's power, but, really, our consent is all the power any of us has and its violation is a terrible thing. Sex is such a powerful thing for human beings and I think that's the reason why consent's role is so heightened with it. This is why rape crisis counselors will tell you that rape is about power, not sex. All violations of consent are about power. Rape (all forms of it, including child molestation) is just the most intense version of that consent violation that can happen to a human being. Murder is about taking your life without consent and removing all chances you would've had to consent or not to any and everything for the rest of your life. Theft is about taking your property without your consent. Rape with consent is not rape, it's sex. Murder with consent is not murder, it's assisted suicide. Theft with consent is not theft, it is charity. Plug any crime you like into that formula and you'll find a similar endgame. Crimes that are not, in my view, crimes at all are the exceptions to that rule. Prostitution with consent is prostitution. Gambling with consent is gambling. Drug use with consent is drug use. With less straightforward crimes, the formula gets a little wacky. Drunk driving with consent is doing so on closed off private roads where every last one of the other drivers is completely aware of it and agrees it's fine. Arson with consent is a big controlled fire with proper safety equipment available in accordance with fire codes. Illegal immigration with consent is, um, becoming an immigrant the legal way. Assault and battery  with consent is, um, S&M? Anyway, you get the point. Like individual rights though, consent is a matter of rights and interests, and I'm fine with that. Eminent domain, for example, violates a person's consent, and is such a libertarian bugaboo for precisely this reason. Essentially, anytime the government wants to do something against the consent of an individual, all I ask is that the debate be robust and that nobody forget the gravity of the situation. 

The importance of consent has been etched into my very being by my life's experiences. From the early stories my father told me of the days of the Vietnam War draft, to the mandatory pep rallies that amounted to parties for my bullies I was forced to attend, to the many rape survivors I have known, to my own abusive relationship, to my rejection of a divine creator who would have the gall to create me sick and then demand me to be well on pain of infinite torture, to the many moments of open defiance I've had to show as business owner to more people than I ever expected. For this life to be of any value whatever, the first thing you've got to have is the ability to move without a boot heel on your neck. There's not much I think I know about politics anymore, but I do know that there will always be people from all over the spectrum who know the power of the consent you have to life your life on your own terms and think, with intentions good, bad, and indifferent, that they know better than you how to live your own life. You see it with the right trying to control the lives of gays, women, and gamers and you see it with the left trying to control health care, education, and business owners. Know that you in control of your own life is the way things ought to be and that you've got to fight the bastards trying to take that control away with everything you've got. What is your life, after all, if not a collection of the things you've consented to and not? Change any one of the decisions you've made throughout your life, however, slight and it could Butterfly Effect things so drastically that you would not, in any real sense, be the one reading these words anymore. Once we reach an age where we are capable of consent, everyone, our guardians and our government, need to get out of our way and let us make our own mistakes. Consent is that important.

-Frank

The Purpose Of Vices

If you're a person reasonably compliant with social norms, you're going to have a romantic life, job, or both. For that vast majority of humankind, there is a very specific purpose to vices. They relieve the stress and anxiety encountered, albeit to varying degree, by every relationship and every job. What of those of us, like myself, who have neither a job nor a romantic relationship and have learned, through hard-won experience, that this will always, or, at any rate, ought to always be the case? Recent reflection brings me to the conclusion that vices serve a purpose that is entirely different. You see, I have no relationship to stress about and no job by which to be stressed. So my vices, here, by the way, meaning fun of which some disapprove, are not about destressing. It is rather the distraction or accomplishing of the passing of time in an enjoyable manner that is their purpose. Rather that drink or drugs, those ever-popular forms of self-destruction, my vices are things like cigars, the preparation of food generally considered bad for you, and writing for enjoyment (plenty would consider this a vice as compared to something more definitively productive). Having this occur to me got me thinking about vices and the role they have played and will continue to play in my life as it goes forward with the current status quo continuing to be the case.

Cigars are probably the most important of my vices. The local cigar shop is really a clubhouse, in its way. The place is a substitute for many of the functions of a workplace environment for me. There are a variety of gentlemen, and a smattering of ladies, who have known me very well for a very long time. They are counsel during difficulties, cheerleaders during triumph, and snarky critics when I get out of line. More than that though, the shop is a reason to get up in the morning and something to which to look forward every day. So many of the hours I have had and many of the however many I've left are spent there. If I have a joke, it is told there, if I have a grievance, it is aired there, and if I need help with something, it is there that I seek it. One could argue that I am setting myself up for mouth and/or throat cancer with this particular vice, but I have three specific response to this. 1. So what? It's a hole. They can get the tumor out. Maybe it'll disfigure me, but I ain't pretty. 2. Maybe it'll end up killing me, but you must keep in mind that I am not particularly attached to living. The road ahead is going to be a lonely one without a great deal of meaning to it and I would rather go through a road that will seem long to me, however long or short it actually is, having fun than not. 3. I've seen far too many old men in the shop who are cancer free to think of cancer's occurrence as any kind of inevitable outcome of my life.

I've written about writing and cooking enough that I have no desire to repeat myself on these topics here. Many people have responsibilities throughout their adult lives that mean they can't just have fun all the time. Instead, they build more meaningful things in their lives by postponing what they want to do for what they ought to do. Several times in my life, I was either doing precisely that or preparing to do precisely that. After all, a career can be rewarding, romance can be the spice of life, and children grow up to be a wonderful part of one's golden years if you raise them right. Absent all of that, what's the point? Well, the simple fact of the matter is that my own life is, in a very real sense, pointless. That isn't necessarily completely damning or anything. I still intend to thoroughly enjoy however many remaining days I have yet. The frivolity of the ways I intend to spend my time may seem empty and callow to most people, but that's only a problem if there is greater potential. Absent greater potential, the frivolous and callow become all there is for oneself to consider. As I write this, I can hear the objections rising in many a reader. What a boi exploring other options or believing in myself? To that, I can only say that I did my level best to leave no stone unturned and I believed in myself and my endeavors to a degree that probably was not entirely sane. A price was paid for it, both psychological and monetary, with each attempt. Those who quit never win, those who win never quit, but those who never win and never quit are idiots. I am done being an idiot. All I want is to enjoy my vices with my remaining time.

-Frank

How To Win Friends And Influence People

People often tell me to read How To Win Friends And Influence People in order to improve my social skills. I have, in fact, read the book. Here are my thoughts:

• I liked the lesson about admitting things are your fault, particularly as it relates to Roosevelt and Taft.  Their divide was, of course, split along ideology and policy, so each had their supporters and detractors.  By neither man backing down out of pride and a quixotic attitude, they both lost the election and incalculably damaged their our causes.  Admitting when things are your fault is an important thing to do, but I contend that there is a reason people don’t do it and that is that their honesty and humility when they do so is often unappreciated.  Instead, it is often used to attack them, and because of that, I tend to only admit when things are my fault if I trust the person I’m admitting that to will not use that information against me. 
• I liked the story about Lincoln writing that letter to the incompetent general and then not mailing it.  Though I fully understand the message that sends, that criticism of that nature, particularly after the fact, does little good, I also find myself curious as to how Lincoln did handle the situation.  While he may have been sympathetic to the horrors of battle, he must also have known that that general had ensured the prolonging of his own participation in the theatre of war.  Firing the general as tactfully as possible, or perhaps transferring him to a less strategically important front, would be vital to acting as a responsible wartime president, in my opinion.
• I liked the overall point that everyone desires a feeling of importance.  It’s another way of saying that everyone wants to feel useful.  Pocky and Granny wanting to help their grandchildren despite being near death and less than physically capable is a prime example of this.  Corporate attempts to apply this principle often fail because they usually don’t make employees feel genuinely important.  Being able to decide what to wear on casual day, being able to use any color of ink you like, or getting to dunk the boss in a dunk tank at a party are kind of fun distractions, but they don’t inspire genuine feelings of importance.  You must feel that what you do actually matters to someone because it affects them in ways that they would not be without you there.  For me, that would be kids learning things they wouldn’t with another teacher because I’m their teacher.

• Okay, on the guy with the six roses to his wife instead of six things he’d like to change about her, I think that’s a load of horse dung.  It’s romantic, it’s sweet, it’s charming, but it’s also a terrible lie.  Of course there are things he’d like to change about her and things she’d like to change about him.  Nobody’s freaking perfect, after all, and we can all improve.  There are a ton of relationship books out there and they’ll all tell you that open and honest communication is absolutely vital to a relationship and I can attest to that because the lack of it on my part destroyed mine with Marie.  If she did not want to know those things, she shouldn’t have asked, and if he did not want to tell her those things he should have said so.  This is a prime example of how I fundamentally disagree with certain things in this book. 
• I liked the story about how they got the little boy to be excited about going to kindergarten.  Admittedly, similar tactics probably would’ve worked on me, at least initially, because St. John’s had been an okay experience.  It’s an old lesson though and one Mark Twain taught years earlier when Tom Sawyer huckstered his friends into whitewashing a fence using essentially the same methodology. 
• I liked all the examples of talking about what the other person wants as applied to a business context.  This is a point that my marketing classes dealt with over and over again.  The concept is that they are not buying a product or service they are buying a benefit to them.  People don’t buy beer, they buy a night out with the boys, feeling sexy when dancing, or feeling worldly in the case of European lagers.  So in anything, you must sell the benefit to them instead of the product, because the product is your focus and their benefit is theirs.  It’s a good sound marketing principle. 

• I liked the story about the magician.  His success does indeed come from being genuinely interested in other people but it seemed a lot more authentic and logical for him to be interested in his audience.  It is logical for him to appreciate and be interested in his audience because they not only are vital for him to make a living, but they are obviously people who like magic and therefore share his interests.  Practical application of the principles espoused usually has more to do with simply paying attention to what other people are interested in and playing to that in order to get them to like you, but the magician’s case is one where being interested in other people is actually genuine and I’m not suspicious about motivation on everybody’s part. 
• I liked the overall point about smiling.  Certainly, I’ve been told to smile throughout my life through song, in pictures, and just about in any area of life.  What’s interesting is little comment is made about the smile being genuine or not, and I think that’s because it need not be.  We’ve all got muscles in our face that, when activated, can send out little beams of positivity whether we feel rotten or not.  To argue otherwise is completely illogical.  From the sales clerk having the bad day, to the cover model who’s actually feeling quite bad from vomiting up her lunch, to the tired parent putting on a brave face for their child, who has woken them up to protect them from imaginary threats, smiling in society is typically as genuine as a crocodile’s tears. 
• I liked the point about remembering people’s names, because it’s certainly true.  However, I’d heard this one before.  Bill Clinton apparently remembers everyone he’s ever met as just something he has a natural knack for.  This was responsible for him seeming so warm to people.  Remembering people’s names seems to indicate to me that you’re paying attention and making someone a priority, but not necessarily that you care about them.  Out of my graduating class, I probably remember pretty much everyone’s names, but look how much I actually like them.

• I liked the point of how important a person’s name being remembered after they are dead can be to them.  Living in Springfield for 8 years certainly gave me an education in that.  John Q. Hammons loves his buildings with his name on them.  Of course, this is just another way of saying how important it is to remember people’s names, and it’s a valid point.  However, you can get stuck in an awkward situation if you go too long without asking.  This can happen easily too.  There’s a guy who works at Conoco near Drury and students know him as Conoco guy.  Nobody I know, including myself, knows his real name.  He’s mentioned that he likes being called Conoco guy before, but it does make you think.
• I liked the overall point of finding out what other people are interested in and then proceeding to talk about that.  Certainly, I recognize that this is an area you’ve been picking away at me to improve on for several years.  However, I find it difficult to fake interest in what other people are interested in and my interests are not similar to other people’s interests, generally speaking.  This is, I believe, part of why normalcy is so important, because it allows for great possibility that you will share the interests of others.
• I liked the general point of acknowledging another person’s importance.  This is slightly different than talking about what they’re interested in or stroking their ego.  It’s much more individualized and not as readily apparent.  It is always about how one feeds one’s sense of self-esteem.  Also, it seems to me that with this sincerity is of even greater importance.  Pretty much the only time I’ll try and do this is if I do have something good to say about whatever it is I think would work on the individual in question.

• I liked the overall point about how nobody wins arguments.  An argument is often not even about what it is about, but about the people involved.  Back in college when I would argue about poverty with poor students, they’d have their sense of pride tied in with their position that it was other people’s fault and I’d have my lack of feeling guilty about the poor tied in with the idea that it was their own fault.  Logic was only garnish to the argument, because it was really about emotions.  
• I liked Ben Franklin’s story and how he learned not to contradict other people.  Certainly, I already realized this is always the more diplomatic approach, but this is yet another area that is difficult for me.  What restraint I have learned comes from Just For Him, which is a place of big men with big opinions.  The best example I have is a man who ran the local gaming convention was talking with me about Star Trek one day.  My favorite of the films, and my favorite film of all time, was the eighth, called Star Trek: First Contact.  An important character was played by an actress named Alice Krige, and this man claimed to have met the actress who played her.  Now it turned out he had met Kyra Sedgwick, wife of Kevin Bacon and star of the hit series The Closer.  I knew he was mistaken, but I let it go by because I knew how much of a part of his pride rested in his knowledge of the same kind of thing I have knowledge of.  In this case, my capacity for empathy was sharper because I knew how I’d feel if I made a mistake like that.
• I liked the overall point of admitting one’s mistakes and when one is wrong.  When done correctly and in the right circumstances, this can defuse confrontations just as the book claims.  However, I think judicious application is mandatory when it comes to this.  Admitting my mistakes to Marie only gave her more fuel to use against me.  Also, admitting I’m not very good at music to her family led to a loss of respect from the clan of musical geniuses that was the Peseks.  In terms of work situations, admitting you’re wrong is only a good idea if you know you can correct the situation in the future and are dealing with your superior while he or she is in a good and rational mood.

• I liked the story about the man who got his rent reduced.  This, so far, is the principles of this book at their best.  Not a mere buttering up of the landlord, what this man did was prepare for the possibility that showing interest and kindness in the man and his troubles in his role would not work.  He was fully prepared to move out if he had to and left it entirely the decision of the landlord to help him out.  That’s a classy and effective way to handle it and I have found success in my life using this kind of method. 
• I liked the whole yes response thing.  This is the inverse of a common method children use to get their way.  The method involves asking for a series of things that the parent will undoubtedly say no to, concluded with a relatively reasonable request, which was the thing the child wanted all along.  Usually, the parent will be desperate to say yes to something at this point, and will be inclined to finally grant the request.  Instead of relying on a lack of patience and diminishingly disagreeable options, the yes response method relies upon a buildup of positive energy and also a measured amount of creating the illusion that the person is agreeing to the point based on their own reason instead of outside persuasion.  Rarely have I used this method, but it seems to show promise, so I might in the future.
• I liked the idea of letting other people do the talking.  While I grant that my own behavior has been the antithesis of this method that does not mean I do not see its value.  Rarely have you seen me around like-minded individuals, and I can tell you that I love to get them to talk.  This does mean I don’t love to talk a lot myself, even in those situations, but I don’t try and dominate the conversation the way you see me around average people.  Admittedly, the motive for that is to try and steer the conversation towards things I find interesting because I have little tolerance for being bored and my God most people are boring.  Around gamers or smokers, we’re all talking about stuff I find pretty interesting to listen to other people talking about.  Some of my best friendships are rooted in the basis of rants from one another that we both love to hear.  With my best friends, I can even set them off on a particular rant about a thing just by mentioning something tangentially related. 

• I liked the general principle that people desire sympathy.  There is a tendency to respond to tales of woe by speaking of your own.  Particularly with women, this is unwise and counterproductive.  Of the points made in the book, I find this quite workable in my own life.  When I want to, I can be very sympathetic to sufferings others experience.  Sometimes I worry that I will seem disingenuous because I have not suffered the same, but maybe people don’t care if I can relate, just that I sympathize. 
• I liked the story about the guy who dumped all those containers of cold cream on the man’s desk.  Dramatizing one’s points is a piece of advice in this book that has nothing to do with positive thinking and everything to do with entertainment value.  This is one area of influencing people that I actually excel at.  What I say is rarely boring and if it is that is only because the topic carries no interest so inherently that no amount of charming presentation could make it of interest to them.  Interestingly, this has more limits in its application because of this than any other method mentioned so far in the book. 
• I liked the point about saying and instead of but when prefacing a criticism with praise.  Whether the praise is sincere or not, influencing people is all about perception and I appreciated that the book acknowledged that and gave a helpful method of appearing sincere.  It’s the kind of thing that makes the whole concept of the book have a sense of integrity and consistency. 

• I liked the story about how the engineer got the typist to stop her spelling errors.  Often, the best people to help a person with a problem are those individuals who had that problem in the past and somehow overcame it.  That means that they can sincerely sympathize with the difficulty the problem causes and accurately know how best to solve it.  Above all,  it means that the humbling and encouragement that they use in accordance to the principles in this book are more likely to be sincere. 
• I liked the overall point of letting people save face, particularly in a business setting.  This will translate well to the classroom setting I will soon find myself in.  The old way of teaching involves making kids come to the board and show skill or failure at the task at hand in front of everyone.  That is something I will not do.  Tests are to be sacredly private affairs, and problems discussed in private talks that lead to private tutoring.  Maybe that will mean more work for me than if I just called poor performers out in front of everyone, but I bet I will get more cooperation and better grades in the end doing it this way.
• I liked the idea of giving someone an excellent reputation to live up to.  When I got a reputation for always getting my stories in on time in journalism at Drury, I made even more of a point of being on time with them, so I know this technique works.  This is true in the case of my housekeepers as well.  When I said they did things well, they did those things even better, and when I said things that they did poorly, they then did those things even worse.  Expectations play a lot into what we do and there’s evidence of that all around us. 

Temple Grandin At Drury

The first thing that you need to know about the contest of this review is that it comes from a man who has autism.  Like Temple Grandin, who came to speak at Drury March 3^rd, I am on what is referred to as the autism spectrum, specifically in the form of Asperger’s Syndrome.  My official diagnosis only goes back about three years, but I’ve learned a lot about autism since then and how it has impacted, impacts, and will continue to impact my life.  Ms. Grandin’s view of her own experience with autism is far more positive than my own with my own, but, then again, I’m an unemployed man who writes articles on the Internet and she’s the most successful living person with autism.  What she managed to do was use her particular unique mind and perspective to make herself useful enough in the world to have a productive functioning adult life.  Specifically, she figured out methods of dealing with cattle and other herd animals that were simultaneously more humane and more efficient.  That whole story is detailed both in the books that she’s written in and the film Temple Grandin, about which I’ve also written.  As she tells it, that innovation was based on the fact that she could think like a cow, but I think using that ability for that purpose probably occurred to her because she had lived a life where no one understood her perspective and forced her into ways of doing things that didn’t make any sense to her. 

     Going to a convocation at Drury University should’ve been a very simple matter for me since I attended that institution for seven years of undergraduate and graduate work and once was assigned the convocation series as my beat for The Mirror student newspaper.  However, the event was held at The O’Reilly Event Center, which didn’t even exist back in 2006 when I got done.  There was even an iron gate you needed a code to access before you could get back into the area where it was built.  So it was I found my once encyclopedic knowledge of the Drury campus limited by the passage of time in much the same way my life is limited by my neurology.  With this rather appropriate thought in mind, I attempted to find a campus official who had offered to put me in the front row and the Faces Of Autism people who I had been told wanted to photograph me.  Both found me in time for the lecture to begin. 

Ms. Grandin was rather more calm and accomplished in person than I’d imagined her based on her depiction in the film, but then again she was being portrayed at my age in that film and is now my mother’s age.  Clearly this public speaking thing is something she’s been doing for a long time and is quite proficient at.  No matter what though, she’s still autistic, and there was a moment with the interpreter for the deaf where Ms. Grandin bluntly asked her to move out of both her normal and peripheral vision because the movement was distracting.  She was careful to explain why she was demanding this and what exactly about that rapid movement in her field of vision was so distracting, but she was also very insistent.  It really set the tone for her whole deeply honest perspective on autism, because it was about both clearly communicating and steadfastly insisting upon what you need to function as an autistic.  Later, she spoke of things like children with sensitivity to sound, and how it’s important to understand that it really does hurt some children’s ears when loud noises happen.  This actually plagues me to this day, making things like rock concerts, nightclubs, loud bars, and athletic events (especially basketball game buzzers, which I would literally hide under my seat from with my coat over my head as a child) completely beyond my capacity to enjoy.  There was also a lot of talk about the advantages of an autistic mind, such as the ability to think logically without the interference of emotion.  In fact, Ms. Grandin cited this ability as why she would not become neurologically typical if she could, viewing the way neurotypicals think and behave as mushy, inefficient, and lacking attention to detail.  Obsessive interests, a defining trait of autism, was also discussed at length and she made the imminently reasonable point that, given that obsessions are inevitable with autistic minds, it behooves parents of autistic children, as well as such children’s teachers, to turn that obsessive interest to useful and productive things. As a kid, my own obsessive interests were both healthy, as was the case with reading and popular culture (Yes, I count that as healthy and nuts to you if you don’t like it.), and unhealthy, as was the case with girls I liked who did not like me or with specific favorite junk foods, so I can certainly tell you from personal experience that harnessing that obsessive nature is every bit as crucial as Ms. Grandin indicates to autistic children becoming successful autistic adults.  When it comes to becoming productive adults, she also seems to favor vocational training that allows autistics to develop skills that will allow them to be employed despite whatever social difficulties might’ve been thrust upon them by their neurology.  Without seeing the film based upon her life, the most surprising thing about Temple Grandin I would’ve learned during the convocation would’ve been her attitude towards animals.  Unlike nearly all animal rights activists I’ve ever known, she has a good grasp of the realities of nature and difficult it would be for humankind to equal the cruelty of a pack of wolves.  Certainly, if I were a cow I’d favor Tyson’s slaughterhouses to anything in the wild if I had to choose the manner of my end.  Neither does she have any truck with vegetarianism, saying that she needs a lot of protein in her breakfast to start her day anywhere near properly.  However, all of this just makes the overall concept behind her revolutionizing of half the cattle industry, which is that nature is cruel but we humans don’t have to be, all the more powerful.  Something about the fact that she’s proven that more humane methods of handling cattle nearly always end up producing product that is better in quality, produced more efficiently, and results in a safer working environment for the humans involved the process themselves lends credence to her more traditional animal rights pronouncement that animals are owed our respect. 

-Frank

Dessert Is Important

Count your calories, count your carbs, count your points, and count your blessings.  Food is fuel to keep you alive and you eat to live, rather than living to eat.  So you read everything you can about antioxidents, superfoods, unsaturated everything, Omega-3 this, organic that, and maybe that’s what you’ve got to do.  Pleasure is only part of the eating experience isn’t it?  Eat or die, after all.  Well, except for dessert, of course.  Nobody needs desserts to do jack.  We are talking about the sole gastronomical experience in human life meant for the sole purpose of pleasure.  That in mind, why would you ever eat a dessert that was just okay?  The very soul of luxury is in play and you would consume the very soul of mediocrity.  Let’s be very clear here.  It is beyond excuse.  Here is the kind of thing you should experience when you have your dessert.  Vanilla should take you away to a place both tropical and floral where the familiar and fantastic merge like a perfect dream.  Chocolate should taste like the soul of an Easter bunny and all the magic and intoxicating ecstasy should flow over the tongue making you grateful for your good fortune to have lived long enough to taste it.  Strawberry should taste of the essence of spring with rebirth and rejuvenation as real a sensation across the tongue as the feel of the newly green grass against the feet.  Lemon should taste fresh and clean, like all the energy involved in photosynthesis became capable of detection by scent.  Whatever you taste and whatever you feel, you should taste and feel something and it should be something that you care about tasting and feeling.  A good dessert will activate the whole emotional spectrum.  Rage at the bad taste in the mouth all the imitators that came before have left lingering.  Avarice at the notion that sharing is even slightly acceptable.  Fear that it might never be this good again.  Will that you will learn to make something this good yourself.  Hope that quality desserts live in an age of mediocrity.  Love for the dessert and the unique experience it brings you.  Compassion for those who haven’t the slightest idea what a real dessert is.  So what’s it going to be?  You can spend your whole life eating sugar frosted cardboard with the shelflife of uranium 390, big tubs of ice cream more air than food, or frozen cheesecake made a lifetime away and served frozen by the slice, or you can have something else.  You can have something special.  You can be reminded why kids the world over ask mom what’s for dessert, why people will buy even bad versions of what they seek, and why Moses wasn’t promised a land of milk and steaks.  Put down your mediocre pile of sugar.  Eat some dessert that you will say without the slightest hesitation or timidity tastes really freaking’ good.

-Frank

Temple Grandin

There is grandeur in this view of life.  So said Darwin at the conclusion of On The Origin Of Species to comfort those who might’ve been distressed at his shattering the illusion of design in biology.  No less grandeur lies at the heart of Temple Grandin’s view of life, which is fundamentally different than anyone who lived before her or ever will again. Her life is remarkable enough that a film was made of it, and that is the subject of this article. My own life is closer to hers, as it also lies on the autism spectrum in the form of Asperger’s Syndrome, but I do not pretend to understand her world, which is the first mistake many neurologically typical people make.  Oh I understand obsession well enough and having one’s talent focused on a laser on something to a degree that surpasses ordinary human understanding.  For Ms. Grandin, it is the care and management of herd animals and for me it is writing.  These gifts come at a significant price for autistics and the film does not shy away from portraying the intense pain that is daily life for people whose neurology differs from ordinary human beings in ways scientists are in the investigative infancy of comprehending.  Neither does the film fail to notice the degree to which intellect and special gifts are the saving grace of the autistic life, as well as the only true armor with which such individuals are outfitted with in a cruel world.  So it is that Ms. Grandin has become one of the most successful individuals with autism alive and quite probably of all those that have ever lived.  In making a film about an autistic, a filmmaker must necessarily make a film about that individual autistic, because nobody is quite as singular an individual as a person on the spectrum.  So I am happy to report that Temple Grandin is a film about its titular character in a very specific way.  Similarities between my own life and the lives of many with autism are there, but they are there organically and allowed to wash over the viewer as much as the cinematography and production design.

     As many reviewers have noted, the film opens with Ms. Grandin, as played by Claire Danes, addressing the audience directly and abruptly, just as she might if one were to encounter her in real life.  To some degree, the film is presented in a non-linear fashion, and I believe this is correct choice.  Flashbacks to the abject misery of her early childhood and the abject misery it caused her mother are necessary because first we must be introduced to her as a young adult of relatively high functioning.  The work it took to get her to that point is talked about some in the film, only briefly shown, and must have been something of a herculean effort on both Ms. Grandin’s part and on the part of her mother.  Without question, her social skills are worse and her strangeness more obvious from her speech, behavior, and priorities than are my own.  When we see her making progress in her late teens and early adulthood, it is always because a kind person has been patient with her and taken the time to understand her perspective and how she works.  This is the crucial ingredient for any autistic to grow more functional and beyond the margins of such kindness and patience lays the abyss.  Occasional scenes of bullying and unjust responses to her reasonable outrage over it abound, but mostly the way people react to things like her hug machine, a device based upon a steel cage used to calm cattle that she uses to calm herself down and experience the sensation of being hugged she is virtually unable to tolerate in humans, are understandable.  Human beings dislike eccentricity and the more severe it is the less they like it, or, at some point, are willing to tolerate it.  The real meat of the story, and even though it’s about cattle I promise that’s not a pun, is in how she uses her intelligence and unique insight to revolutionize the handling of herd animals.  I well understand the power of being able to simply blast through walls on the basis of simply being right and knowing what you’re talking about.  Expertise in one’s specialty area is the ace you get to play when you have autism, and Ms. Grandin uses her insight into herd animals far better than I’ve ever figured a way to use my writing ability.

     Part of the enjoyment of watching this film is seeing Claire Dames having an acting breakthrough.  When I first noticed this actress, she was known best for her role in a short-lived cult sitcom and for playing Juliet in perhaps the most laughable production of Shakespeare’s beloved tragedy ever produced.  Off the top of my head, I also remember seeing her playing the love interest in Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines and the female lead in the quality adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust.  Essentially, she’s been serviceable and in good projects for most of her career, but I would contend that she’s never been given a chance to shine.  Temple Grandin is Ms. Danes truly coming into her own as an actress, and that’s largely because of how much the role is a stretch for her.  Ms. Danes has an austere Hollywood delicate beauty to her, while Ms. Grandin, both in the film and in real life, is a rather gritty character unafraid to deal with hard men, harder animals, and get down and dirty in the mud.  Witness her standing next to the real Temple Grandin as she accepted her Golden Globe for her performance in the film and you’ll understand why the glamorous Ms. Danes transformed herself every bit as much as Charlize Theron did to wide acclaim to play a homely serial killer in Monster.  Perhaps you’re wondering about the ins and outs of how Ms. Grandin revolutionized the cattle industry and the film explains it a bit.  It involves having them walk in a circle instead of a straight line so they don’t become spooked, providing them walls and solid footing in the slaughterhouse so they don’t become distracted or fall, and generally recognizing that the more comfortable the beasts are the more efficiently they’ll march to their deaths and onto our plates.  How and why this works, I don’t think I completely understand and perhaps it is the case that only Temple Grandin understands why it works.  That’s what makes her a genius and what allowed her to build a life worthy of making a film about her.

-Frank

Halloween

As Halloween is upcoming, I thought I'd write about my thoughts on the holiday. It's certainly one for which I hold a great deal of affection. In previous writings, I have noted that Christmas is about the four elements of Judeo/Christian mythology, pagan mythology, generalized secular winter festival, and a sense of goodwill. So too can Halloween be broken down into the disparate elements that give it its appeal. After all, although some adults (like my mother) consider it to be a holiday strictly for kids, Halloween has an appeal that goes well beyond the time where you start looking out of place carrying around an orange pail begging door to door for candy. Throughout my adulthood, I have seen so many people from so many walks of life. After giving it a little thought, I think just about anybody who isn't being whatever the Halloween equivalent of Ebenezer Scrooge can enjoy Halloween if they wish to do so. They'll enjoy the costumes, the candy, the kitschy horror, or the serious horror. Obviously, the more of the elements of Halloween they enjoy, the better their overall enjoyment is to ultimately be, but one may get by with just one. Each of these elements will get their own paragraph here as I explain who I think enjoys each element the most and why.

Costumes are probably the silliest aspect of Halloween for naysayers, but those who look forward to the one day a year when adults can go anywhere and do anything dressed-up as creatively as they like is a day worth celebrating. The specifics of why costumes appeal to people seems to vary. Serious makeup artists like to push the boundaries of what their creativity can achieve. Gore hounds like to put more time and energy than I can ever imagine into make-up that will repel and frighten in equal measure. Geeks take the opportunity to essentially turn it into cosplay day, and I've done my time as a knight, ghostbuster, Freddy, Jason, Michael Meyers, The Mask, Skeletor and probably others I'm forgetting that would not be out of place in the halls of Comic-Con. Of course, many of us geeks don't quite have the bodies to effectively portay our favorites, but Halloween is the one time where you're completely allowed to do anything you want with a cosplay without fear of judgment. Perhaps it's a bit sexist, since these costumes are limited almost exclusively to women, but the sexy costume is certainly an entire genre unto itself. Generally, you just take a profession with an identifiable uniform, subtract material to the point where a prostitute would find it useful wardrobe, and Bob's your uncle. Comedy costumes are the last variety of which I can think and my Purple Pimp costume was certainly that. A ridiculous outfit with equally ridiculous accessories, I used it to make jokes that all the women around me in sexy costumes were me, "Hos."

Candy is probably Halloween's biggest star and like movie stars it is so popular because it just works in anything it's in. Valentine's Day, Easter, Christmas, and more show that candy is where it's at if you want your holiday to be loved. Of course, Halloween does take the concept of candy to its highest possible expression. Other holidays involve mythical creatures or loved ones giving you candy. Only on Halloween, however, can you go around your very own neighborhood and just knock on doors until your candy container is full. Being that you can only trick-or-treat when you're a kid, this is not a part of the holiday that adults can enjoy in the same way and I suspect it is the aspect of Halloween most responsible for it being considered a kid's holiday. We adults can certainly keep the tradition going by hosting our own trick-or-treaters, fulfilling what, I suppose, is the Halloween version of the circle of life. That's fair though, as adults have money to just buy, or make if you're inclined similarly to myself, our own candy. Something of a rite of passage occurs when kids go through the process of learning what exactly to seek out and avoid when it comes to candy. Wax lips, cheap off-brand taffy, circus peanuts, anything with nuts or rice, and sugarless gum were my personal biggest candy pet peeves. Living in a condo, there's nothing I can to to carry on the trick-or-treating tradition, but I do think that this what gets Halloween in everyone's heart when they're a kid.

The kitschy horror of Halloween is the part where we take what we're afraid of, which is mostly death, disease, and monsters, and turn it into something silly and camp. Monster Mash was probably the strongest example of this. Of course, so are The Munsters, The Addams Family, Elvira, and most of Tim Burton's career. You see it in most of the Halloween decorations out there. Most of the materials seem to be, at best, teetering on the edge of horror and comedy. There's one tradition that I recall being directly involved in in my teens. While I don't know precisely what to call it, it involves taking various food items and setting them out in a darkened room. Kids would come in, typically guided around while told a tale of a witch who had died and also that several of her body parts were still intact and in the room. Things proceeded to where they were instructed to feel the body parts, which were her brain (Jell-O mold), her hair (cold spaghetti), and her eyes (peeled grapes). Everyone can think of examples like this from their own personal experience. A few people I know even take special joy in the monster cereals based on classic Universal monsters. This aspect is what keeps everything from becoming too heavy or scary for small children and parents of small children.

Dark horror is where all the laughing stops and we simply face our fears. A man in my own childhood Halloweens used to wait in a coffin that seemed a decoration. He would rise from it as a vampire and terrify the living crap out of us little kids. That's a small taste of this complex and challenging aspect of Halloween that I freely confess I don't much enjoy. Even though I don't enjoy it, I respect it. Fear is a powerful emotion and exploring it is probably an extremely healthy thing to do. Some people legitimately enjoy doing this and I certainly understand the raw power with with they are apparently fascinated. Perhaps appropriately, this aspect weaves and creeps its way across the culture of Halloween in many respects. Disney's version of The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow, despite being a Disney cartoon, contains one of the most terrifying lines ever. When Brom Bones sings to Ichabod Crane about the various supernatural creatures he will face on his ride home from the Van Tassel party, the townsfolk join in and sing, "Some are fat. Some are thin. Some don't even wear their skin." This is plenty creepy, but, when I was growing up, churches would actually tell us to beware of Satanic cultists who would kidnap children and ritualistically abuse or murder them on Halloween night. As an adult, I learned of haunted houses beyond Disney's The Haunted Mansion. Actors jump out at you through the darkness as you pass through various scary scenarios. I never made it through.

So there you have it. Costumes, candy, kitschy horror, and dark horror. You've got to be quite the curmudgeon to not like any of that. As I prepare to dress up as Dilbert's Phil The Prince Of Insufficient Light, purchase candy and a Halloween cake, and dance idiotically to Monster Mash, I find myself swelling with affection for this great American holiday. Only Christmas holds more of my admiration.

-Frank