How I Got So Smart

My wife and I bought a GameBoy for our son when he was in his early teens, some fifteen years ago or so. Phil is out of the house. But the GameBoy has remained with us and is far from being exiled to the Island of Unwanted Toys. Many a night while watching the evening news or catching something else on the tube, my wife and I play Tetris.

Now, comes evidence that this addictive game "may boost the size and efficiency of parts of the brain." I wondered what accounted for the enormous increase in the IQs of my wife and me over the past fifteen years. Now I know.

"Thanks for the ticket!"

One of the many ways in which I make my family nuts is how I respond to Highway Patrol, county sheriff, or community police cruisers when we're out driving.

Say it's a holiday weekend like the one we're just completing. Someone will say, in ominous tones, "There's a patrol car" and I'll respond, "Good! They're keeping the rest of us safe from dangerous drivers."

I know. That's incredibly square.

It isn't as though I haven't been caught speeding while driving myself. It's happened several times and it's less than pleasant paying a speeding fine. Every time it's happened to me, I haven't been able to keep from thinking about all the good things toward which that money could have gone!

And I have known people to have had bad run-ins with law enforcement personnel who've cited them for traffic violations. Off the top of my head, I can tell you stories of three different twenty-something young men who lived in my former community in the Cincinnati area, none of whom had violated any laws, but because they were in their twenties, ran afoul of law enforcement:

• One had his vehicle hit by another driver out on a country road. Initially, the offending driver was cited. But several days later, someone called to ask if, in light of the lofty status of a relative of the offending driver, he would be willing to be cited. That way, the VIP would be spared any negative publicity. (I never understood how negative publicity would happen, by the way.) When the naive twenty-something, afraid to cross people in authority, agreed to the request, he soon found himself spending thirty days in the county jail.
• One drove a van on an icy night after he and his mates gave a Christian rock concert at a church. Less than a minute after they drove off of the church parking lot, they were pulled over for driving left of their lane. He was taken to court and when the young man's father, a respected guy in the community, asked for permission to speak with the judge, he was threatened with contempt and time in jail. That young man, by the way, is now an officer in the US Army who has served multiple tours in Iraq.
• One had been in his car less than thirty seconds after visiting friends on a Memorial Day weekend. The police officer ordered him out of his car, took away his cell phone, put him in cuffs, and took him for a breathalyzer. When the young man "blew" less than half of the legal level for intoxication, he was still charged with being in control of a vehicle while intoxicated. Ultimately, though he hadn't even put the key into the ignition, a judge and two lawyers, in consultation with the arresting officer, decided to convict the young man for driving 55 miles per hour in a 25MPH zone.

Yet for all the excesses and profiling--racial, ethnic, age, and otherwise--that riddles the enforcement of traffic laws, the need for legitimate control over speeding and other forms of reckless driving is undeniable.

That's why I react the way I do to police cruisers when I'm out driving.

Tom Vanderbilt, in a recent piece in Slate.com, suggests that panic shouldn't be our first reaction when we see the "local cop's cherry top." The Week summarizes Vanderbilt's argument:

Americans’ most common contact with police is “the dreaded and oft-scorned traffic stop,” said Tom Vanderbilt. Most of us view being stopped for speeding or other infractions as an irritating act of government intrusion into a trivial offense.

But traffic stops actually serve as a critical tool for maintaining public safety—and not just on the roads. Police make more than 20 million traffic stops each year, and they often serve “as a net for catching bigger fish.’’ People with disdain for traffic laws have disdain for all laws. So “routine’’ traffic stops often result “in a trunk’s worth of drugs, a cache of hidden weapons, or an outstanding warrant.’’ Cities that emphasize high-visibility traffic enforcement, including Baltimore, have seen a reduction in the overall crime rate. Meanwhile, France has reduced its “road fatality rate” by 43 percent since 2000, largely through an aggressive deployment of automated speed cameras and tough penalties.

So the next time a cop pulls you over, instead of cursing him under your breath, you might say “thanks.’’ That speeding ticket is helping to save people’s lives.

While law enforcement needs to be held accountable for the kinds of abuses I mentioned above, whenever police officers pull someone over who's been going too fast, they're not usually doing something petty or inconsequential.

Of course, my esteem for the highway patrol might go back to watching Highway Patrol, starring Broderick Crawford, best known for his starring role in the original screen incarnation of All the King's Men.





By the way, here's a video of a live performance by Bruce Springsteen and his band of Jungleland, the song from which that line about the "local cop's cherry top" is taken.

I wonder...

how much is the letter Q worth in French Scrabble?

Did Beaver Experience Any Desperate Hours?

At lunchtime today, I turned on the TV and saw the last two minutes of The Desperate Hours, starring Humphrey Bogart and Frederick March. I've never seen the film before and so was stunned by what I saw: March walking into a house that looked like that of the Cleaver family from Leave It to Beaver. Not the house from the early years, but the last few seasons. A Google search showed that mine isn't the only Baby Boomer mind cluttered with unnecessary facts and images. March really was in Beaver's house.

Here's a picture of the first Cleaver house.

How many brain cells do we waste on memories like this one?

[UPDATE, 8/29/2012: Because the link above doesn't work, here's a new one that gives the rundown on Beaver's house. Later, Marcus Welby moved in.]

So, What's the Male Version of a Schlumpadinka?

Apparently, Oprah Winfrey introduced the world to a new word today, schlumpadinka. According to Winfrey, a schlumpadinka "represents, for me, a woman who dresses like she has completely given up…and it shows."

Hmmm. Maybe Winfrey is being a bit sexist. I mean, there are males who seem to have given up on looking human. too. Oprah hasn't yet dubbed these men with names, sort of giving them a pass, don't you think?

But, Oprah isn't the only one overlooking male frumpiness. Society is certainly more accepting of we men who have given up on looking presentable.

Don't believe me? Think of all the sitcoms that feature average-looking guys who dress like slobs, but whose TV wives, when seen in public, appear to have combed their hair and pressed their clothes.

There's a reason for these stereotyped TV couples: They represent, to some extent, the real world. Ralph Kramdens and Jim Belushis who live on your street have managed to win the hearts of wives who, at least outside the house, avoid being schlumpadinkas. But the guys don't even try.

So, shouldn't there be a male version of this word. How about dumpaschlink?

It works for me.

In fact, a few weeks ago, in a busy parking lot, I saw a dumpaschlink. He was changing a tire that had gone flat on his car.

I felt badly for him and for his pregnant wife, who was shivering in the cold waiting for him to finish up.

As I was driving off the parking lot, I stopped and rolled down my window to ask if they needed help. (Honestly, I'm pretty useless when it comes to anything mechanical. But I thought that I'd at least offer.)

"No," the woman said, her teeth chattering in the cold. "My husband is almost finished." I said, "Okay" and glanced over at the man.

Now, of course, no one who's changing a tire in inclement and difficult circumstances is going to look their best. Nor should they be expected to.

But, sprawled on the pavement, this guy's untucked shirt and unbelted pants conspired with his decision to not wear undergarments to create a really unpleasant sight. I wanted to tell him that this was not what Jesus had in mind when He told us to turn the other cheek.

Whether Oprah intends to provide fashion advice to dumpaschlinks, I don't know. From the brief minutes I've watched her show through the years, my guess is that the advice offered would be more hoity-toity and precious than we guys would want to hear or that we'd abide by, in any case. So, here are a few basic rules for dumpaschlinks who'd prefer not being such slobs:

1. Tuck in your shirt.
2. Wear a belt.
3. Wear the waistline of your pants on your waistline. (There's a revolutionary notion!)
4. Wash and comb your hair at least once a day.

But, I suppose, offering this advice is pointless. As long as women are willing to accept the double standard that says a man can be a dumpaschlink but a woman can't be a schlumpadinka, frumpy men will be mooning unsuspecting passersby on public parking lots.

(I will admit that it takes some guts for me to write this because, as I sit at my computer, I'm wearing an old orange sweatshirt, at least ten years old, and a black ball cap that should have been thrown away a long time ago. But I'm not planning on sharing my dumpaschlinkness with anybody tonight.)

From the Trivial Pursuit File

My blogging friend, Pastor Jeff, has posted something called a MEME, which is basically a blogging challenge or chain letter. He stipulated that I should:

1. Pick up the nearest book ( of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people. [That is, ask five other bloggers to respond to the same MEME.]

Directly in front of me on the shelving unit of the computer desk at which I'm working is a book I read several years ago, How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe by Thomas Cahill. I had pulled it out to look something up recently. If you haven't read it, it's a fascinating book, not the least reason being its profile of Saint Patrick.

Here are the three sentences I found just beyond the first five sentences on page 123, which just happens to be the beginning of chapter 5:

By 461, the likely year of Patrick’s death, the Roman Empire is careening in chaos, barely fifteen years away from the death of the last western emperor. The accelerated change is, at this point, so dramatic we should not be surprised that the eyes of historians have been riveted on it or that they have failed to notice a transformation just as dramatic--and even more abrupt--taking place at the empire’s periphery. For as the Roman lands went from peace to chaos, the land of Ireland was rushing even more rapidly from chaos to peace.

Cahill's thesis is that the Irish church saved ancient wisdom and was the home of a rubust, joyous, grace-filled faith in Christ.

Wonderful Useless Facts

Here.

Re: #11: This holds true only if you learned how to type the right way. I never did and still only use the index finger and thumb on my right hand and the middle finger on my left. (By the way, for interesting facts about left-handers, go to this post by Amba.)

#8: Nice to learn about my favorite drink.

Also check out #33, #168 (hardly an auspicious beginning), #179 (I'm afraid that I've stolen approximately 23, 537 from somebody else; I am sorry), #208 (is that true, Bostonians?), and #401 (I knew this one).

[For more on my interest in useless facts, go here.]