Sheep don't surf.

My 15 year-old daughter was crying and it was my fault. It was ten to seven in the morning and she had just told me to hurry up and take her to school. She was way early; and I was not ready to go. "Did you eat?" I asked.

"No, but I’ll get some cereal."

She, of the "let’s go" a moment earlier, then filled a bowl with cereal and milk and sat down to spoon frosted flakes into her mouth while operating her i-phone with the other hand.

"What the heck?" I said. "You just told me to hurry up and now you are sitting down looking at Snapchat! Do we need to go or what?" She started crying.

"I’m stressed out and failing. Stop it!"

I was mortified. I forgot she had two semester exams that day; in algebra II and history. Both were honors classes and the math was super tough. She had been studying hard and was spent. My angry tone was too much for her.

I quickly apologized. She stopped crying and finished her food. I dropped her off at school went back home to finish my coffee (we live close). I’ve been listening to an audio book. It’s titled Excellent Sheep. The author is an Ivy League graduate and former admissions official and professor at Yale. He believes the educating and parenting paths that many Americans follow is a mistake. He says that the insidious pressure to keep up with the Joneses has motivated us to wrongfully push our kids to follow a poisonous path we’ve been told leads to lifetime success and happiness. I think he is right.

We may not be Ivy Leaguers ourselves, and we may be happy with our lives. Ecstatic even. Nonetheless, we are urged by a tsunami of media influences to believe that only if our children are straight-A, activity-fueled, community-serving, multi- lingual, club-forming leaders accepted to Harvard will they ever be happy. My wife and I have at times pushed that vision on our children.

Baa. Baa. Baa.

Warren Buffet went to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business - for two years. Then he returned to the University of Nebraska. Now he’s one of the wealthiest people on the planet and seems content with his life.

Mark Cuban went to college at the University of Pittsburgh and Indiana University. Not the Ivies in any way. He has always been a business owner and entrepreneur and would likely be successful, college or not.

Apple’s creator, Steve Jobs, and Microsoft’s Bill Gates both dropped out of college. Higher education is sometimes necessary, but it is NOT a prerequisite to financial or emotional satisfaction.

Look at the other end of the wealth spectrum: the professional surfer. I follow several on Instagram. They never seem to have a bad day. How could they? They are always near beaches and are directly connected to nature. They are all tanned, toned, and smiling. But they aren’t usually rich in money. I envy their visible lives anyway. Wake, eat, surf, eat, sleep, repeat. Bliss.

Honestly, we can’t know how happy or unhappy anyone really is. It’s impossible to know what they  carry in their trunks. But you can’t deny that people the world over appear happy even though they never scrambled for admission to a prestige college.

My children (like yours) are smart, talented, and capable. I can see that one may take to being herded better than the other. But if they decide they are not following the same path as the rest of the flock, and I will let them decide, and instead take up acting, writing, Ebay commerce, or even big-wave surfing, then I may be the one crying. Not out of sadness or pain, but with joy.

　

　

　

　

　

Stars in the dark

Do it now. Limited time only. This deal won’t last. There has never been a better time to buy.


Why do we take this bait? Why does anyone?

There is no limit to time. There is always another opportunity coming. There will always be a time to buy, or sell, or jump, or eat or sleep, or even fall in love.

As long as you are alive there is opportunity to act. It’s okay if you don’t squeeze the juice out of every moment. Even the guys who cheat death for RedBull videos on YouTube spend countless boring hours planning, arranging and practicing for their 30-90 seconds of fame.

Often we act as mice in a maze, bouncing against walls of our own making, scrambling from event to deadline to event, until we stop, exhausted, and sometimes without ever having eaten the cheese. (Cheese, glorious cheese).

Many of us feel we have to be "productive" at home, on days off, even on vacation at the beach (Maria), anytime when we aren’t working for someone else. This is when we desperately need to slow down and live. Breathe in, breathe out. Just float in the water, catch a wave, look up at the stars and wonder just where you are, just for the sake of wondering.

Looking at the night sky is one of my favorite pastimes. I’ve found that if I can see some stars, I can focus on a point between two or three, in what appears to be dark emptiness, and just try to see as far as I can imagine seeing, then, to my delight, a pin-point of light will materialize where I am looking.

The stars are there, in what seems to be darkness. They are always there. Just like opportunities. Take a moment. Breathe. Look. See.

Life. Bulbs.

First blackness and calm, then crackling and pulsing alertness.



Everyone in the circle is awake and glowing. There are hundreds of them, six or seven different outlooks, but all connected for the same bright purpose.



They don’t live on their own. It’s the shared energy that animates them. The same force that propels thoughts, movement and light. It gives life to them, maybe to all of us.



One of them stops. It no longer participates in the group. Its family stops and stares, still glowing and feeling. What can they do for this one?



Evolution of their kind allows them to live and work all together on the same wavelength, and to continue even when one of them departs. Earlier families would live until their weakest member passed. Then they would all die together, as one.



Now they try to recover their own. They make a fuss. They crackle and hiss. None wants to believe there is no way back for one.



But there isn’t a way. Sometimes darkness is all there is.



So they go on beaming and gleaming, until it’s time to sleep, and the switch is flipped.

　

　

　

　

　

　

ISIS is pathetic not fearsome

It is horrible that some black-clad wackadoos took 118 lives in Paris. How many Americans were killed by fellow Americans over the weekend? Its 30,000 a year, so from Friday through Sunday it must have been about 100 

Did we call out the troops? Curtail travel and unfettered activity? No. Timothy Mcveigh killed 168 people in 1995 by bombing a building. Did troops appear on street corners in Oklahoma City? Did. We consent to searches of our stuff? 

Why the heck are 118 deaths in a huge city in an even bigger country an ocean away making news here? Why is it making you scared? You are not under any threat. Your chance of seeing or being personally affected by a bad guy has not changed.

ISIS is a name only. It is not a meaningful threat to any American. The bigger, real, threats to Americans is that they develop diabetesor, or have a heart attack, or get in a car accident, or get shot by a police officer.  

Don't be scared. And don't let Trump or Cheney or anyone else who accumulates government power tell you to be scared. Americans don't cower. Your ancestors got on a rickety boat and sailed over rough seas for months just to get away from the overreach of the King and his power. Don't you think you have what it takes to face a graphic TV image without surrendering your liberty or dignity? 

GI Joe suicide cop was so credible. Like a politician.

The suicide cop story out of Fox Lake, Illinois shows that credibility trumps integrity, but thankfully only for a little while. Joe Gliniewicz, GI Joe, Kingpin of Corruption, the Rot that Fox built, was the poster child for honorable police officers. He was loved and respected by coworkers and the community. From a distance he was a clean shaven, tattooed knight in blue. Up close? A skittering cockroach, reeking of stolen money and cheap perfume.

He expertly cultivated a look. An appearance that villagers wanted to believe. He carefully sculpted a facade that gave him the power to rob his fans. It is a sadly familiar story. While the dullards were glorifying his veteran-cop image he was betraying their foolish trust and stealing their money to buy hookers, jewelry, and a bigger house.

As a sociopath, he was unmatched, with Ted Bundy-like charisma serving his selfish needs. He projected honesty and credibility, but he had no honor, no integrity and no moral standing. Today a news report said that he contracted to have the village manager killed. Why? Because that lady might uncover his misdeeds. This was the kind of cop that kills people, plants a gun, and makes up a story about how his life was in danger.

When a person appears too good to be true, they are. They really are. There is no purely good person. Anywhere. Those who strive to project their own perfection are usually desperate to fill the crags in their character. They smooth over their flaws, but the gaps are still there, rotting deeper under the veneer of respectability.

It is the political season and here they come dressed in pin-striped suits, wearing flag pins. The media loves the smooth, well-coiffed faces of those oh-so-credible smooth-talkers who want to  be in charge of your tax dollars, your relationships and your bodies. Remember GI Joe and be cautious. Be very cautious.

Going German

Today an excellent article reminded me that Germany is offering free college tuition to qualified international students. The article, on the BBC News website, described the program here: US Students get a uni degree for free in Germany. My life plans just changed.

My wife's family moved to the US from Greece the year before she was born. Her older sister was  born in Greece. My father in law was thirty-seven at the time. Thirty-seven! Several friends, cousins, and even an older brother had already emigrated to the U.S. by then. He saw his chance and bravely cut his tickets. He and his wife packed their scant possessions, their four-year old girl, and a few bucks they'd collected, and they got on a boat to the United States.  Talk about adventure. Talk about courage. Talk about a commitment to a better life for a family.

I admire that move, and I have a strong desire to take a similar step, but in the opposite direction. My teenagers have already been to Germany, Greece and Australia. They speak Greek decently, and have smatterings of a third (sadly not German). They have seen that the world is a big, amazing place with more opportunity than most of their peers imagine.

As they advance in their education, my kids are often asked to consider where they will go for college. I ascribe to the James Altucher idea that college is generally a waste of time and money. It makes no sense to blow four years of time to get buried in debt just to graduate to the bottom of a career salt mine, forced to take work you don't love, in order to pay off the debt. It sounds dumb that way doesn't it? That's because it is dumb. "College is for suckers" is my mantra (with exceptions). If college costs a fortune and the value of the education is dubious, then it makes no sense. On the other hand, getting an engineering or chemistry degree that will be recognized throughout the world, for no tuition cost, changes the game.

My wife and I like western Europe. Its culture has developed over more than a thousand years, lending to a social climate that is both more welcoming and more private at the same time. Its style, sensibility, and connection to the world at large make it a more interesting and dynamic place than say, southwest Ohio. Language is not a barrier. Most Europeans speak English well. We can always find a few Greeks for help, and Maria and I have transferable skills.  

U.S. universities are raising fees and costs at rates far greater than incomes are rising. The inverse proportion of annual room, board and tuition costs compared to post-graduation income has reached all time highs. The gulf between what a family spends on education and what a graduate might earn is terrifying. Yet Americans, like lemmings, continue their unthinking march to the college-at-any-price beat.

But we don't have to go over the cliff. I think we can send our daughter to Germany for her first year in university. I see my wife or me joining her for the first month to six weeks, and then returning to the states after she settles in. When her academic year ends, she can extend her European experience by living with extended family in Germany or Greece, working a job, or she can come back to the states. Knowing my girl, she will opt for a little more Euro-time.   

If she decides that it will be to her benefit, and we convince her brother to do the same, and the program still exists, then we will send our son to Germany too.  We will also rent out our home here and relocate there for the next few years. Maybe we will return to the States. Maybe we will live out the rest of our lives as ex-pat Americans in Europe. Maybe we'll move to a warmer climate in Spain or Costa Rica. If nothing else, we will enjoy the German lifestyle for a couple of years. That's the plan mein freunde.

Eins, zwei, g'suffa.

U.S. Congress by random draft #DraftCongress

In the service of the United States young men over the age of eighteen were at one time called to don uniforms, carry guns, and storm hills in the face of gunfire and bombshells. They were chosen from a random pool of boys who voluntarily registered their names and Social Security numbers, knowing they could be called to die for their Congress's and President's chosen path of bloodshed and disaster.


U.S. Congressmen, holed up in their cushy offices, far from gunfire or danger, called this process fair. It wasn't fair.  There were loopholes in selection that any well connected, white, college-aged man could avail himself of. See, for example, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush.


Nonetheless, many good men whose impact on the planet, its people and its fortunes will never be known, answered the call. They got suited up, shipped out and got killed. True, many came home just fine. Many never left the US. But many came back, broken. Badly. 


But it was mostly fair. Fearsome, unimaginably violent, dubious in origin, but fair. There is a current and far better use of that kind of random selection process now.


The U.S. should adopt a public service draft, by Constitutional Amendment of course, for Congress. All representatives would be chosen by a staggered, random drawing from all U.S. citizens between the age of 35 and 65. The single term of service would be four years with half of Congress replaced every two years. All who served would get DC dormitory housing for when Congress was in session and would be paid a daily stipend for their attendance at Congressional gatherings, which, I would bet, would be a whole lot less often than they are now. I estimate a drafted congress might meet once every three to six months and only for a week or so at a time. They could get reimbursed for constituent communication and events too. But only out of their district's tax payments.


Lobbyists would be mostly powerless. Committee assignments would be loathed and not coveted. Nobody would be out hunting for re-election support, so no company, cabal, or Netanyahu could consistently buy influence. There would be no lavish pensions, no junkets to foreign lands, and probably no more military-industrial complex. There would be a continued need for career specialists and administrative employees and agencies, but no more elected official class and its grossly ignorant buffoonery.


It is quite possible that with regular Americans in office, some meaningful, humane and relevant policies would be adopted. I would imagine quite a few bad laws would be stricken too. A drafted Congress would be efficient. There would be little to none of the "we have to do something" nonsense we have now. That fluff would disappear. There would be no patience for being away from home, family and work to vote for spending on National Broccoli Day recognition or some such.


Imagine. Members of the governed, called to govern, without a promise of influence or power, who just want to go through an agenda of pressing items and go home. Certainly if it was fair enough a process to choose young men to face death for the whims of their leaders, it is fair enough to choose citizens to make far less fatal and final governance decisions.  #DraftCongress