It seems the number one rule of our enlightened culture is to not offend anyone. The corollary to that rule is to not clearly communicate whenever humanly possible.  John Leo wrote a great piece at Townhall.com about the avalanche of euphemisms that are overtaking actual communication. In this world a plane crash becomes, to the airlines, a “Hull loss.”   New Orleans police rejected the term “looting” after Katrina, but they conceded “the possibility of appropriation of non-essential items from businesses.” I don’t think too many cared if water, baby food, clothing, and groceries were taken for desperate families. DVD players and HDTV’s are another issue. Exhibit A is survival…exhibit B is looting.   Our educational system is a leader in the growing field of doublespeak. Self-esteem has become the Holy Grail of many education leaders. Leo’s column cited such gems as… A number of schools have eliminated “F” as a mark, and “suboptimal outcome” means failure.  How much better
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Earlier this month I received the most meaningful birthday present of my life. When you get to be my age birthdays are kind of like unspoken prayer requests. You are aware they are there but you don’t want to make them public.   But my family still insists on acknowledging the march of time on my birthday. So the morning of April 6th dawned and my wife gave me a lovely card. And then she presented her gift.  She gave me a rock. She handed it to me, smart alecks. It was not delivered up side of the head. I have to admit that I looked a bit quizzically at the gift. I looked at her and tried to think of the right thing to say.   “Hey, it is just the color I was looking for! And what a cool shape. Thanks!”  But my wife spared me by asking the logical question. “Do you know why I am giving you a
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I came across a fascinating story in USA Today last Friday. The article was entitled CEOs vouch for Waiter Rule: Watch how people treat staff. I was shouting Amen just after reading the title. Writer Del Jones hit the ball out of the park with this one. Christians, lace up your steel toed boots because this could be a toe-stomper.  Here is an excerpt from the piece written by Mr. Jones…  It’s hard to get a dozen CEOs to agree about anything, but all interviewed agree with the Waiter Rule. They acknowledge that CEOs live in a Lake Wobegon world where every dinner or lunch partner is above average in their deference. How others treat the CEO says nothing, they say. But how others treat the waiter is like a magical window into the soul.  Bad Christian comment…I suggest you filter all of these comments through your grid as a follower of Christ. How you are representing Him to those
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April 15th is not my favorite day of the year. Tax day is never fun for a guy who is organizationally challenged. My idea of being prepared is having everything in one box. But I was heartened to find that April 15th is a great day for baseball fans.  Jackie Robinson made his major league debut at first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers on that date in 1947. It was a historic and significant day for baseball but maybe more so for our country. You can argue that the American civil rights movement was ignited when Robinson came to bat in Dodger Blue. The journey for Robinson was difficult at best and nearly impossible at worst.  Many Dodgers players, mostly Southerners led by Dixie Walker, threatened to walk if forced to play with a black player. That ended when Dodger management let them know in no uncertain terms that they could keep walking to the unemployment line. I often write
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The number one box office movie is still the 1997 film Titanic. It was the number one movie for fifteen consecutive weekends and grossed 600 million in the US and over 1.8 billion worldwide. Titanic became a national obsession to the point where people were wearing T-Shirts that said… The boat sank.Get over it. Many moviegoers got drawn into the class warfare relationship of Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet). But there was so much more to this story than the boat sinking. The pride and arrogance of engineers who thought they had designed the unsinkable vessel. Witnessing the worst side of human nature as people perished because some were so concerned about self preservation that they willingly sacrificed others to achieve that goal. All of this came to mind as I read an article in The Weekly Standard entitled Being a Man. Christina Hoff Sommers is the author of the piece. She is the author of a book called The War Against Boys
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Online banking has changed one tradition in the Burchett household. The monthly avoiding of Dad on bill paying day. The boys learned either by oral tradition or by hard lesson that when Dad was hunkered over the checkbook with a scowl on his face it was best to steer a wide path. Now with just a few computer clicks when bills come in I can spread the angst over the entire month. And somehow it seemed far more painful to write a check than to merely fill in numbers and hit send. I remember one constant source of irritation was the paying of the cell phone bills. Sons who rarely spoke could somehow fill up 2000 minutes and compose hundreds of text messages. Here is a scintillating example of the Algonquin Round Table level of interchange in these text messages.  IBHRUJPXLNTPOS…. GTRTTFN For the rest of us, this is an interpretation of the above cryptic code. I’m back.How are you?Just playing.Excellent.Parent over shoulder….got to
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There is an interesting editorial in today’s edition of USA Today by Diane Cameron entitled We are Easter People . Here is a portion of that piece. One of the lowest points in my life occurred years ago when I was living in Washington, D.C., at Easter time. My older sister had recently died and both of my brothers were seriously ill; my best friend was leaving town, and on top of that I was questioning my work. In my journal that April I wrote, “Am I depressed?” When I read those pages now I laugh and shake my head. “Depressed?” That I even had to ask. In that long year I thought I’d never laugh again, just as I thought I’d never again feel love, the joy of easy friendship, or the satisfaction of good work. I went to church that Easter out of both habit and desperation. I had grown up in a church-going family. It was what we did. And
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