STRIKES

In baseball, you get three strikes, and then you are "out." In real life, you may be "out" after only one or two strikes or you may get many more.

My wife walked in this morning as I was working at my home desk, and she told me that the 17-year-old daughter of the Republican vice presidential candidate was five-months pregnant.

We already knew that the Republican vice presidential candidate was a woman, had a five-month-old baby with Down syndrome, and was breast-feeding. To some people, this information already added up to three strikes. Did this latest "strike" mean that Governor Palin is "out"? I sure hope not! Life is too complicated to make decisions simply by adding up strikes. I am not even sure which, if any, of these facts is a strike when it comes to choosing a vice presidential candidate. Surely, there must be more important criteria than the candidate's gender and family issues.

Is Governor Palin a good candidate for vice president of the United States? Many people will be debating this issue up until Election Day. If her running mate at the top of the "ticket," Senator McCain, and she are elected in November, this debate no doubt will continue for years to come.

I hope that the real issues are the ones that will be debated. These issues revolve around policies, experience and judgment. Reliability and integrity also are factors, but I hope we find better ways of evaluating them than through micro-inspection of each candidate’s child-rearing practices and other very personal information.

It is always tempting to make decisions about complex issues based on concrete and easily established facts. If these facts are relevant to the decision, there is nothing wrong with considering them. Nevertheless, we must prioritize consideration of less concrete but more relevant factors when making our decision. These priority considerations do not include a candidate's gender or the reproductive condition of her children regardless of their age or marital status.

THE REAL THING

Calling something "the real thing" does not make it so no matter how often it is repeated.

A number of years ago, Coca-Cola (or was it Pepsi?) started calling their soda "the real thing." They even had a jingle that seemed to get stuck in my head. "The re-al thing!" I can still hear it over and over. I guess that is what they wanted the commercial to accomplish - to get people like me to remember their jingle instead of the other guy's jingle.

Did remembering their jingle get me to buy their product? Maybe. But I can tell you this, I always hated that jingle. Maybe that is part of what they were trying to accomplish. If people hated their jingle, it would make a more lasting impression on them.

What I hated about the jingle was the shallowness of what it was saying. Could any soda be "the real thing?” Soda is the most artificial substance man takes into his body. It has no redeeming value other than it is wet. With all the sugar and/or salt it contains, it does not "really" quench your thirst. It only seems to relieve it temporarily. To me, it seemed obvious that no soda was "the real thing", and all soda was as artificial as can be. Did the advertising executives "really" think that people are that stupid? I guess we are! The advertisement was repeated so often for so long, someone must have thought it was increasing sales.

We need to be aware that something does not become true just because it is repeated many times. Repetition makes a concept familiar. It does not make it true.

All prejudices are maintained by this aspect of human nature. Repeating something over and over again makes the concept so familiar that people stop questioning it. "Jews are cheap! Blacks are lazy! Polish people are stupid!" The list of commonly repeated prejudices continues almost forever. Are these and other prejudicial statements true? There is no scientific evidence to support any of these statements. Of course, these statements are true as they apply to some members of each group. There are some Jews who are cheap, some blacks who are lazy, and some Poles who are stupid. Of course, there are plenty of gentiles who are cheap, whites who are lazy, and members of other national groups that are stupid. Prejudiced people always point to one or more specific people to support their prejudicial statements. "I used to work for a Jew, and he was so cheap!" "I grew up living next to black people, and they were so lazy!" "I knew a Pole in high school, and he was so stupid!" Does anyone really believe that one or a few examples proves a generality? Yes! Whenever I make this point to a group of people, someone invariably responds, "But I know a lot of Jews who are cheap!" or "But I know a lot of blacks who are lazy!" or "But I know a lot of Poles who are stupid!" Somehow this "knowledge" of theirs translates in their minds into the belief that, "All Jews are cheap!" or "All blacks are lazy!" or "All Poles are stupid!"

The older I get, the more I have learned to question every assumption that people throw at me. Assumptions, like prejudices, always contain a grain of truth. Sometimes they contain a lot of truth. I have never heard an assumption or a prejudice that is always true. Even if you are correct that a lot of Jews are cheap, is this Jew cheap? Is this black person lazy? Is this Polish person stupid? Is this prejudice applicable in this situation? Is this assumption true in this case?

I wish we could completely get away from all assumptions and prejudices. Until that time, at least can we agree to question whether they are applicable to the specific situation we face?

HURRICANES

We are not responsible for hurricanes. We are responsible for building our homes in areas prone to flooding.

Almost two million people were evacuated recently from the path of Hurricane Gustav. As I write this, it is too early to know the cost of this evacuation. It is certainly too early to know how much damage Gustav will cause. A lot of this uncertainty revolves around whether or not the as-yet-uncompleted levees around New Orleans will hold. When you factor in the cost to build and maintain these levees, the cost of this hurricane and the many other hurricanes that hit this area almost every year is astonishingly high.

Are all these efforts to protect New Orleans and the surrounding areas worthwhile? Of course they are. Our society has invested enormous sums into building the New Orleans area. Protecting the people and property in this area must be a high priority for our country.

But what if people had not built their homes and businesses in flood prone areas? Surely, we are obligated to protect these areas only because they are built up. If there were no homes and businesses in this area, the need to protect it would be dramatically less expensive. After Hurricane Katrina hit this area two years ago, billions of dollars were spent to rebuild and repair the damage that hurricane caused. Many of the homes and businesses that were rebuilt and repaired after Katrina are threatened once again - just three years later. How many times should these rebuilding efforts be performed before we say, "Enough! Stop building in these areas knowing full well that they may be destroyed once again in short order"?

I do not know the answer to this question. I do know that we need to anticipate the consequences of our decisions more carefully to determine what dangers they may cause.

Too often we create problems for ourselves by "building in flood prone area." I am guilty of this error in judgment as least as much as most others. For example, for many years we took a very aggressive stance when it came to opening group homes for people with serious and complex challenges. Many providers pointedly avoided moving into certain areas where neighbor problems could be anticipated. We did not. Instead, we located group homes anywhere that seemed to meet the needs of the consumers who would live there and the agency which would support them (us). After all, discrimination against people with mental retardation and/or mental illness had been found many times to be illegal. The consumers have a right to live anywhere, we argued, and we will locate them anywhere.

Clearly we were correct in terms of the law. We won almost every zoning challenge that was thrown at us, but at a terrible emotional cost to managers and consumers alike.

Am I sorry that we took such an aggressive stance to protect the rights of the people we support? Of course not! Would I have done it differently if I had known then what I know now? Yes! We could have accomplished essentially the same outcomes for the people we serve with a lot less aggravation had we been a little less aggressive. We did not need to look for trouble. It would have found us soon enough under the best of circumstances.

REALITY

Reality shows are anything but.

When I was growing up, television shows had titles like, "Father Knows Best." All families in these show had two parents. Of course, one parent was male and the other was female. The mother of the main family in the show was always attractive, a good cook, dressed neatly with proper makeup, never yelled, etc. The father was always slightly distracted but knew what was best (hence the title "Father Knows Best"). In the end, the father always came through for the family. Reality? Of course not!

When my kids were growing up, television shows became more realistic, but certain things were still off-limits. All beds were twin beds, and if the parents were shown in bed - a rarity - they were always in separate beds. These shows may have been somewhat more realistic, but not much. The exception was in the area of violence. For some reason, violence on television was more acceptable than sex when my kids were growing up. It was "ok" to show people being beaten or murdered, but "sex" - never!

During the past several years, "reality shows" have become very popular. Of course, real reality is rarely shown because real reality is almost always very boring. So many of these shows are about people in situations that normal people have never experienced and will never experience. The only thing real about these shows is the people. They are real in the sense that they are not actors. These shows are about real people in unreal situations. I guess that is "reality" in a limited sense.

The real reality show is everyday life. Most of us find our lives to be drudgery much of the time. Occasionally, something really good happens, and occasionally something really bad happens. The rest of the time, it’s "the same old, same old."

How do we make our personal "reality show" more interesting? We can take on challenges. These challenges do not need to be extreme. They need only involve improving some aspect or aspects of what we do. How can we improve our performance at work? How can we be better parents and spouses at home? How can we treat our parents more respectfully and give them the support that they need in their old age? How can we contribute more to our community? These and others like them can form the basis for creating challenges that will make our lives more interesting and the world a better place for us and everyone else.