Future Isn't What It Used To Be

When I was a kid in school, they told us that by now, we'd all be flying our own little helicopters to work or when we went shopping. They said most of the diseases and illness that plague human kind would be cured by now... and that we'd spend weekends on the moon, and two week vacations on Mars. There would be no more war.

They said we'd have two-way wrist TVs to communicate (well, we're almost there) and homes would all be heated with solar panels on the roof... cars and trucks would be pollution free... cars would drive themselves down the highway. Why did we believe them, the dirty rats. Where's the pleasant, clean, peaceful future we were promised?

Watch Wearing

Time was (no pun intended) when I felt naked without a watch. If I'd leave home and forget my wristwatch, I was constantly looking for a clock to see the time. It wasn't that I had to be someplace, or that I might be late if I didn't keep track of the time. It had more to do with being in the moment... so to speak. I'd read a book called Be Here Now, by an associate of Timothy Leary, a Harvard psychiatrist named Dr. Richard Alpert, who became Baba Ram Dass. It's a long story that I'll skip for now. But anyway, I was trying to be here... you know... like, now.

For a time, (no pun intended) there was an early-morning TV program where an interesting and likable college professor conducted a class on the media. I wasn't taking the class for credit, but the man was interesting. And since I had to get up anyway, I'd tune in for the class. One morning, he talked about clocks, and specifically, digital clocks. He called them "the most subversive invention ever." The professor went on to explain that a clock with hands showed you not only the time at the moment, but where you had been, and where you were going in time. The issue with digital clocks, he told us, was that they forced one to focus on the moment, to the exclusion of what came before or later. Suddenly, I no longer wanted to "be here now," I wanted to be here before, or after now. I didn't care when, just not now. I got rid of my digital watch and went back to one with Mickey pointing to numbers.

Eventually I got out of the habit of wearing a watch altogether. I hate hunting down those little batteries, and because almost everywhere you go, there's a clock someplace... except at the doctor's office. They don't want you to see how long they've kept you waiting.

The Long Arm of the FBI

Jack Anderson was a newspaper columnist and investigative reporter who broke many stories embarrassing to the Nixon White House, the FBI and the CIA. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972, and died in December 2005. Among those who worked for him, and studied under his tutelage, was Brit Hume, now managing editor for Fox News... no left-wing liberal network.

Anderson sometimes obtained information from "insiders" who supplied him with secret documents and memos not intended for public viewing. So angry were members of the Nixon Administration, that a top aid employed thugs to poison him, a plot that dissolved when conspirators of the Watergate break-in were captured.

Now, the FBI wants legal permission to go through Anderson's files which have been donated to George Washington University for use by scholars and researchers. Some think the move is a "fishing expedition" by the Bush Administration to frighten reporters who might engage in similar investigative journalism in the future.

Could it be that the Bush Administration has something to hide?

Baby Names

A generation ago they laughed when rock star Frank Zappa of the group Mother's of Invention named his daughter "Moon Unit" and his son, "Dweezil." Grace Slick, lead singer of Jefferson Airplane called her daughter "China" while David Bowie bestowed upon his daughter the name, "Zowie," causing school mates to call her by the humorous moniker, "Zowie Bowie."

Still today, people give their children weird, strange, and even laughable names. Jason Lee and Beth Riesgraf call their son, "Pilot Inspektor," and Penn Gillette of the magic team Penn and Teller crowned his daughter, "Moxie Crimefighter."

I have to wonder if anyone gave consideration to the children who will have to wear the names they were given until they're old enough to change them. Will their friends think their parents were really cool, or just idiots? How will it sound when the teacher takes attendance each morning?

We gave our children the traditional names of Christine and Robert, because it was about them, and not us. And, because we wanted their friends, family, and people who they would meet later on in life to like them, not laugh at them.