Jeff’s Pad

George Carlin was an American comic who died in 2008 at the age of 71.  Carlin had a long career as a stand-up comic.  Toward the end of that career he became increasingly concerned about America’s direction, and his later appearances focused on the excesses of American politics and culture.  

On three consecutive nights I had dreams in which I sat down and interviewed Carlin.  They were detailed, vivid and strangely morose and humorous at the same time.  Carlin on the first night was wearing a bunny outfit.  He was dressed as a big white furry bunny, with a fuzzy tail and big lop ears.  Even stranger was it somehow made sense, and I never asked him about it.  What follows are the notes I took of the conversation when I awoke.

Q:  how are you?  What is the afterlife like?  And why are you and I sitting here conducting this interview?

Carlin:  You might want to hone your interview skills a bit.  Those three questions cover a lot of ground.  How about we focus on one at a time? (Carlin’s eyebrows stretch high as he says this, highlighting the glaringly obvious interview gaffe I have just made)

Q:  I always liked that when you would bug your eyes out and raise your eyebrows after making an obvious point during your stand-up routine.  It dramatized the point you were making and underscored the irony in that unique Carlin-esque way.

Carlin:  Thanks for pointing out the obvious to me about me, the ‘me’ that is dead and has now had ample opportunity to review my life.  (eyebrows are up again)

Q:  Are you ever out of character?  I mean, even now as we sit here, with no audience, you seem to be doing your schtick anyway.

Carlin:  Is dead out of character?  I think it is.  But hey, you said it.  Irony does well on either side of the curtain.

Q:  So, speaking of “the other side.”  How are you now?

Carlin:  I am actually quite similar to the way I was before.  I’m still funny as hell, or so other souls tell me.  I am still quite cynical.  And I still marvel at the plight of America, only now it is more of a fascination with the details about how people anesthetize themselves to the obvious plight of the country.

Q:  what you called, “swirling the drain?”

Carlin: Circling the drain….Yeah, the slow yet now accelerating decline that is characterized by pulverizing stupidity, an almost suicidal penchant for overconsumption of carbohydrates that make people fat, and endless diversions that contribute pretty much nothing to the betterment of the species.  Other than that everything seems to be perfect.

Q:  ok, I want to come back to that, because I am curious as to what you now know that could help us out, especially since you have now “crossed over.”  But first, share some of your afterlife experiences.

Carlin:  What I know now?  Excuse me, but what I know now is exactly when I knew then, which nobody seemed to know was true…know what I mean?  (George is now grinning ear-to-ear, because he has delivered this in his trademark staccato machine-gun style of rapid fire facts.)

Q:  uh…

Carlin:  Ok, first your “afterlife” question about what that is like…Well, I always wanted to be 12 feet tall and invisible, and now I am.  Or at least in my mind I am, which isn’t really true either.  You don’t really have your own mind here; after death you leave your body behind, which is actually quite nice.  I don’t have to floss and clip toenails anymore, and my bunions were kind of bothersome.  Though I do miss the gallons of ganja I inhaled.

Q:  No mind of your own?

Carlin:  Yeah, it’s kind of like America, only smarter.

Q:  So with no mind, and no body, what is left?

Carlin:  Your essence.  And I know that is an abstraction, which people in the west seem to hate, but it is what it is.  It is beyond the world you are familiar with, the world of form and content.

Q:  so, how are you and I communicating?

Carlin:  hey, I died, I didn’t become God.  I don’t have all the answers.  And this is your dream.  You explain it.  You have the burden of proof.

Q:  I’m not sure I can do that.  But dreams happen.  I mean, everyone has them.  Scientists have proved that we have dream states.  My question is about how this communication is happening.  I can’t explain it.  But it is happening.  I am experiencing this.

Carlin:  of course you are.  And so am I.  The fact that scientists have verified dreams doesn’t matter.  The majority of the world’s credible scientists have evidence of global warming, but the kooky right-wing conservatives deny it’s veracity. Just this past week the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, a group that doubts climate science, surprised the science-deniers by corroborating previous research. I don’t think that will matter much. That’s something true about America; while the facts are interesting, in the end they don’t matter much.

Q:  how can you say that?  America leads the world.  We are a beacon of freedom to millions.  Our way of life is the envy of most of the world.

Carlin:  No, No and No.  Geez, now I sound like the politicians.  You think you lead the world.  You don’t.  While you may be a beacon to some, I don’t think it is virtuous to brag about third-world citizens fleeing grinding poverty and political repression.  And by the way, you have your own political repression, only it is much more subtle, sinister and pernicious.  So much so that your own citizens either don’t recognize it or are in denial about it.  And no, you aren’t the envy of most of the world.  Have you traveled to Europe lately?  They don’t wish to have the American way of life.  Just ask them.

America is the sole remaining industrialized nation that has not made a political commitment to acknowledge global warming and do something about it.  Think about that wall of denial.  I think it’s Denmark that has a 200 year plan for flooding that they have in place as a response to the rising sea levels that they have projected as a consequence to global warming.  They have spent billions.  They are preparing.  In America?  You argue and have food fights about whether it’s happening.

The American infrastructure generally is crumbling.  But instead of investing in that, the empire building goes on across the globe, with literally trillions spent on weapons systems and war efforts.  It’s sad.

Q:  hold it.  That’s just plain wrong.  I can cite many examples of how America leads and how our way of life is superior.

Carlin:  America leads in terms of Imperialism.  With over 250 military installations around the world, you have no equal.  America leads in supplying weapons and arms to the rest of the world.  America leads in defense spending, because that makes profits for the war machine that none of you even question, because you live in a culture dripping with fear.  Too bad, because that is exactly the kind of spending that bankrupts and brings down nations.

Even on scales of world rank on numerous items, America has fallen behind.  In measures of upward mobility, which is the likelihood that a person can rise to higher socioeconomic levels, America has dropped to 12^th among industrialized nations.  That’s like Sweden ranking 12^th in Swedish meatballs.

Q:  Hey, that’s a Bill Maher joke!

Carlin:  Yeah it is, I ripped off Maher on that one.  You can get away with that here.

And speaking of getting ripped off, America leads in ripping people off.  Your own Academy Awards gave the best documentary award to “Inside Job” by Charles Ferguson.  That movie exposed the reasons for the financial collapse, primary of which was deregulation and a lack of oversight of the financial industry.  Get this; tens of TRILLIONS of dollars were lost in that debacle, and not a single person went to jail.  Why?  Because the political system is corrupt, from top to bottom, and that corruption is sustained and condoned by politicians that have included George W. Bush and Barack Obama.  The stench of corruption goes to both sides of the aisle, and in this case the aisle is more like a sewer.

Try ripping off the local convenience store and see if anyone reacts to that.  The local newspaper is all over that.  But guys in suits on Wall Street?  Nobody touches that.  Obama’s poster boy Tim Geithner was hip-deep in the mess, and he is a big deal in your government.  I guess having the fox guard the henhouse works for America.  Or some in america.  Do you mind if I don’t capitalize it?  It seems out of character.  It might even raise an eyebrow if someone saw that I continued to capitalize it.

Q:  Funny.  But this is a dream.  No one is gonna see whether or not you capitalize America.

Carlin:  Exactly.  And no one in America is gonna care what I say about it either.  They didn’t before and they won’t now.  They are too busy being distracted and scared about some contrived boogeyman somewhere.  (The current flavor of the month is Quaddifi.) Or watching “Jersey Shores.”  Or eating at the mall after running up the credit card.  …they are getting on with the american dream.

Like the song says, “logic and proportion have fallen softly dead” in america.

Q:  George, you sound bitter.

Carlin:  Yeah, but it’s all a dream, right?  Everything is forgotten in the morning.

Or is it?

That is to say, how well do you understand things?

If understanding and meaning are proving to be somewhat elusive for you, there is a good chance you are doing just fine.  That is the good news.

The flip side is that you may be feeling somewhat isolated.  And that can be disconcerting.

According to George Herbert Mead, the individual mind can exist only in relation to other minds with shared meanings.   So if you aren’t connecting, maybe that is a good thing.

With that in mind, I am prescribing to anyone feeling adrift some therapeutic exercise time on Facebook.   This may cause you to feel very good about yourself.

If this post is confusing to you…good.  Construct your own reality around it.  Better yet, construct it with one of your Facebook connections.

She knew him as Robert S. McNamara.  She didn’t know his middle name.  And when preparing invitations to their wedding, Margaret Craig called McNamara to find out what it was.

“It’s Strange,” said Robert.

‘I know it is, but what is it?’ she asked again.

‘That’s it,’ he said.  ‘It’s Strange.  It’s Robert Strange McNamara.’

This is one story McNamara tells in the 2003 Errol Morris Academy Award documentary, “The Fog of War; Eleven Lessons from the life of Robert S. McNamara.”  It is an intimate portrait of the man who I believe is easily one of the most influential humans of the 20th Century.  McNamara cast a long shadow across the events of the past 60+ years.  His legacy is extensive; influential in the firebombing of Japan during World War II; the first President of Ford Motor Company outside the Ford family; Secretary of Defense under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson; architect of the Vietnam War; and World Bank President from 1968 to 1981.

The significant contribution of this brilliant documentary film is the intimate portrait of McNamara the man.  At times resolute, matter-of-fact and direct in his positions, and other times displaying deep emotion, the viewer- at least this viewer- comes away with the conviction that this is a man who has lived the examined life.  McNamara has likely suffered greatly the expense that heavy responsibilty brings to bear upon those placed in lofty and exalted positions of power.

In a sense, this film is McNamara’s act of contrition.  Not everyone would agree with that assessment.  Indeed, McNamara still has angry critics.

Yet as I watched, I couldn’t help but compare this man and his determination to understand the events and experiences of those epic days with that of the recently departed administration which also presided over similar great world events.

But I can’t imagine a George Bush or Dick Cheney ever doing the kind of soul-searching that I believe comes from McNamara.  Perhaps time will change that, and the long-view will bend them to their own kind of mea culpa.

But the essential character of this man, 85 years old at the time of the movie, is uncommon.

The films’ narrative follows the course of McNamara’s public life, and along the way we are given the 11 lessons he has learned through his experiences.  He begins by saying that ‘any military commander who is honest…will admit he has made mistakes in the application of military power.  He has killed people, unnecessarily…through mistakes, through errors of judgment.’

He goes on to say ‘I’m at an age where…I can derive some conclusions about my actions; my rule has been try to learn.  Try to understand what happened.  Develop lessons and pass them on.’

For anyone who recalls these tumultuous times in American history, it is deeply moving to watch as McNamara describes the horror of firebombing Japan, killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians, a war he calls one of the most brutal in human history.  We also see him weep as he describes how he chose the burial place at Arlington National Cemetery for John Kennedy following the President’s assassination in Dallas, Texas, the man who lured him from his leadership position at Ford Motor Company to serve as Defense Secretary.  The treatment of this part of the story by filmmaker Morris reaches a depth of emotion with a temperament and pace that is moviemaking brilliance.

McNamara goes on to outline his involvement in the Vietnam War, and the mistakes that were made.  The primary lesson he articulates about Vietnam is “be prepared to reexamine your reasoning.”  He says that ‘we should never apply economic, political or military power unilaterally.  He adds that “if we would have followed that rule in Vietnam we wouldn’t have been there.  None of our allies supported us.  If we can’t persuade nations, with comparable values, of the merit of our cause, we had better reexamine our reasoning.”

The echo of that lesson by this giant of a player who held center stage during America’s cold war period apparently was lost on the leaders who unilaterally applied military power in a place called Iraq.

This poignant and powerful film accomplishes something very special.  In the gentle grip of the waning years of his life,  Robert Strange McNamara is presented to us on his journey of transformation to discover the self.  It is a wonder to behold.

Almost 15 years ago to this day on the sitcom Seinfeld, Jerry Seinfeld implored his friend Elaine in ‘The Dinner Party’ episode to “look to the cookie.”  I guess Jerry was suggesting getting along had something to do with getting together.

The conversation went something like this:

JERRY: Ummm, The thing about eating the Black and White cookie, Elaine, is you want to get some black and some white in each bite. Nothing mixes better than vanilla and chocolate And yet somehow racial harmony eludes us. If people would only look to the cookie all our problems would be solved.

ELAINE: (Sarcastically) Your views on race relations are fascinating. You really should do an op-ed piece for the Times.

JERRY: Um, yum, Look to the cookie Elaine. Look to the cookie.

Today I am suggesting that we ‘look to the lyric’….just to see if getting together with these messages brings a meaningful insight or two.

And here are a few to take a look at…

I wish I was a messenger and all the news was good;

I wish I was the full moon shining off a camaro’s hood

from ‘Wishlist’ by Pearl Jam

And I wish the spokesman for the United Auto Workers wasn’t Ron Gettelfinger, the poster boy for entitlement.  Jeesh, how hard is it to figure out that he is not the guy to put out in front of the cameras?  And we think the Big Three will be smart enough to make changes to become competitive?

I’m ahead, I’m a man
I’m the first mammal to wear pants, yeah
I’m at peace with my lust
I can kill ’cause in God I trust, yeah
It’s evolution, baby

from ‘Do the Evolution’ by Pearl Jam

There are currently approximately two dozen recognized conflicts occurring in the world.  We (USA) have two to our credit…er, uh, that we are involved in.

The boys who kiss and bite
They are the brilliant ones who speak and write
With silver luck

From ‘The Boys Are Too Refined,’ The Hush Sound

Silver Luck?  Is that better than no luck at all?

You don’t see what you possess,
A beauty calm and clear-
It floods the sky,
And blurs the darkness like a chandelier.
All the light that you possess,
Is skewed by lakes and seas;
The shattered surface,
So imperfect,
Is all that you believe.

I will bring a mirror,
So silver, so exact,
So precise and so pristine,
A perfect pane of glass.
I will set the mirror up,
To face the blackened sky.
You will see your beauty every moment that you rise

From ‘You are the Moon,’ The Hush Sound

Reach out and support someone..

Yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dog’s eye
Crabalocker fishwife pornographic priestess
Boy you been a naughty girl, you let your knickers down
I am the eggman, they are the eggmen
I am the walrus, goo goo goo joob

From ‘I am the Walrus,’ The Beatles

I think there was a direct correlation between the length of the Beatles’ hair and their drug use.  I present ‘I am the Walrus’ as exhibit A. Can you spell LSD?

You’re the finest thing that I’ve done, the hurricane I’ll never outrun
I could wait around for the dust to still, but I don’t believe that it ever will.

From ‘Hurricane,’ by The Hush Sound

We all make mistakes; we don’t all forgive them.

I’m a thief, I’m a liar,

There’s my church I sing in the choir

From ‘Do the Evolution,’ by Pearl Jam.

Pastor Ted Haggard is the latest in the saint-to-sinner society of preachers gone wild.  From Jim Bakker to Jimmy Swaggart, these pious pretenders litter the aisles like spilled change from the collection plate.  Did power corrupt or do the corrupt rise to power?  With a firm grasp of ‘judge not lest ye be judged,’ I pledge to pray for…all of us

Disarm you with a smile
And cut you like you want me to
Cut that little child
Inside of me and such a part of you
Ooh, the years burn

I used to be a little boy
So old in my shoes
And what i choose is my choice
What’s a boy supposed to do?
The killer in me is the killer in you
My love
I send this smile over to you

From ‘Disarm,’ The Smashing Pumpkins

Burn is a spiritual technology to learn, painful but effective

Your picture out of time
Left aching in my mind
Shadows kept alive

If you have to go don’t say goodbye
If you have to go don’t you cry
If you have to go I will get by
I will follow you and see you on the other side

From ‘For Martha,’ The Smashing Pumpkins

For Gigi

There are exactly 13 items in my shower. Each one of them has a story, and though I have tried to think of someone other than myself to tell the stories, I have concluded that I am best suited for this epic duty.

In no particular order, here is the cast of characters:

1. bar of soap #1- it is green, it smells really good, and his name is Dial. Yes, I have assigned a gender, at least for this blogpost. Spelled backwards, ‘dial’ is ‘laid.’ Applying some imagination, with equal parts silly nonsense, and I come up with this formula; Smell good, then dial in on getting laid. (I said it was nonsense)

2. bar of soap #2- this soap is not attractive at all. It emerged from a box labeled, “wash away your sins.” The color of the soap is something akin to a four day-old bruise on your hip. Ironically, this bar of soap has been in my shower for months. It never erodes. Apparently neither do my sins. (see #1 above for a clue as to why) It was a gift from a past relationship. I think the gender assignment is male. For the soap, not the person.

3. a washcloth. It sits astride the tub faucet, performing its lonely sentinel duty guarding the about-to-emerge stream of water, waiting for the call (actually a hand) to cleanse grit and grime from all bathers who care and dare to use this now-mildewy piece of cotton that should have been washed weeks ago. Ah well, soldiers/sentinels are used to field dirt.

4. A ‘Matrix 3′ razor. This is a plain old razor that I use to shave. It is commonplace and plain, really a rather benign presence among the other items in that it is so lacking in any design pizzazz. And when I consider the name- Matrix- I cannot help but compare it to the dull, uninspiring actor Keanu Reeves who starred in the Matrix movies of years past. My Matrix razor, a dullard among my shower items, shares the same persona as the actor. I think my razor has the edge in acting, though.

5. ‘So Sexy’ shampoo. This is a pink bottle of hair shampoo that is the design antithesis of the Keanu Reeves razor- I mean Matrix Razor. This bottle looks good. It lives up to its name. I keep it (her) a good distance from the razor, as I know these items personified would want it that way.

6. A can of Gillette Foamy shaving cream. This item is the pigpen of the family of shower items. It leaves a rust circle wherever you put it. The question I have is this- don’t any of the people who manufacture this stuff actually use the product? If so, is there not one of them that has noticed this untidiness? I learned early on to tip the can over onto its head, er, cap, to avoid the unsightly rust ring that the metal bottom causes. Come on Gillette Foamy, clean up your act. I have to use extra Comet to clean off the marks when I clean. Hmmm…maybe the Comet people know the Gillette Foamy people. Is this an unholy alliance of planned pigginess?

7. A Gillette Venus razor. This is a women’s razor. It is so…female. It has lots of curves, soft ridges, and a see-through handle. It is technology with a personality. Very non-Keanu. I keep it by the ‘So Sexy’ shampoo. Of course. (I wonder if they will kiss?)

8 and 9. There is one couple in this collection. A tube of toothpaste and a toothbrush. They stay very close together. They are never apart. I can’t imagine them separately. I suspect there are enmeshment problems. But I don’t want to judge this relationship. I mean, if it works, who am I to cast aspersions?

10 and 11. These next two are shampoo and conditioner. They aren’t really a couple. I’m not sure of their status, beyond their obvious cleansing roles. What is interesting is their contents. Actually, to be more precise, the description of their contents. The conditioner says it comes with “active fruit concentrate.” The shampoo- not merely shampoo, but “fortifying shampoo”- has “nutritive fruit micro-oils.” It also says that it has vitamins B3 plus B6, with Apricot and Avocado Oil. Maybe I should be eating these items instead of pouring them on my head.

12. This is a lonely bottle of “warm vanilla sugar” shower gel. This stuff has been sitting in my shower for years. It is 97% gone, with enough left to maybe cleanse the left hip of an average-sized man. Since my bias is that men don’t usually use shower gel, I guess it won’t be cleaning any average-sized man’s hip in the future. I will let you speculate as to how much coverage remains for a large woman. Or a small one. You pick.

13. This last item is an oddity. It is aromatherapy sensual sugar scrub. The stuff looks like 30 weight automotive oil with some kind of granular debris in it. It also feels like oil. Out of curiosity I once grabbed some of it to wash. I found out what wildlife has to contend with when tankers run aground and spill crude oil into the ocean. It was a good thing I experimented in the shower, as I was a mess. It was time to get laid- uh, dial- to clean up. I have no idea why anyone would buy this stuff. I guess I should ask. It has no redeeming qualities that I am aware of, unless an odd jasmine smell accompanied by feeling greasy is your thing.

I recommend checking out your bathtub denizens.  Don’t take them for granted.  Give them their due.  They are there for you, each and every day.  Get to know them better.  Take a close look- you will like what you see.  And if you don’t- just pretend.

Here are just a few things I have heard recently that were humorous to me. Perhaps you will enjoy one or two as well.

1. This first one comes from a college football television sports announcer:

‘you know, offensive players love going into halftime with a lead.’

Really? You don’t say? They like to have a lead? And I wonder how the defensive players from that same team feel about it?

2. this is a comment from my friend, after I told him my 93 year-old mother had recently started wandering the halls after bedtime, knocking on fellow residents’ doors at her assisted-living home:

‘hey, I bet those other folks like getting a visitor. You should celebrate this.’

my buddy almost always finds a creative way to look at things.

3. An acquaintance, after the recent news about The Chicago Tribune and other newspapers on the brink of collapse:

‘newspapers are f______ 8-track tapes.’

‘old industries don’t die, they just fade away.’

4. the same acquaintance, after a recent blogpost by Dallas Mavericks owner and all-around crazy guy Mark Cuban (ok, maybe he’s not crazy- how about annoying?) that offered his ideas to save the newspaper industry. Cuban feels NBA basketball teams like his need newspapers , so he suggests that professional sports teams pay the sportswriter’s salaries, which would reduce costs to the newspaper:

‘That will never work. The newspaper industry is a dead man walking.’

‘maybe Dead Man Walking author Sister Helen Prejean could also say a few prayers for the industry’

5. Remember the incident in Minneapolis last November at a Minnesota Gophers vs. Iowa Hawkeyes football game? Around halftime a man and woman were caught having sex in a bathroom stall. And apparently a crowd had gathered to cheer the two trysters on. Turns out the deed-doing duo consists of one 38 year-old married female and one 26 (at the time) year-old male who has a girlfriend.

After the incident, the husband of the woman said that ‘he felt bad he let his wife go to the bathroom by herself before halftime, and that he ‘didn’t realize how bad off she was.’

That was probably an awkward ride home.

‘People, people…where are your boundaries?‘

The column below is from Thomas Friedman of the New York Times. Friedman is the author of “The World is Flat” and “Hot, Flat and Crowded.”

Op-Ed Columnist
How to Fix a Flat
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Last September, I was in a hotel room watching CNBC early one morning. They were interviewing Bob Nardelli, the C.E.O. of Chrysler, and he was explaining why the auto industry, at that time, needed $25 billion in loan guarantees. It wasn’t a bailout, he said. It was a way to enable the car companies to retool for innovation. I could not help but shout back at the TV screen: “We have to subsidize Detroit so that it will innovate? What business were you people in other than innovation?” If we give you another $25 billion, will you also do accounting?

How could these companies be so bad for so long? Clearly the combination of a very un-innovative business culture, visionless management and overly generous labor contracts explains a lot of it. It led to a situation whereby General Motors could make money only by selling big, gas-guzzling S.U.V.’s and trucks. Therefore, instead of focusing on making money by innovating around fuel efficiency, productivity and design, G.M. threw way too much energy into lobbying and maneuvering to protect its gas guzzlers.

This included striking special deals with Congress that allowed the Detroit automakers to count the mileage of gas guzzlers as being more than they really were — provided they made some cars flex-fuel capable for ethanol. It included special offers of $1.99-a-gallon gasoline for a year to any customer who purchased a gas guzzler. And it included endless lobbying to block Congress from raising the miles-per-gallon requirements. The result was an industry that became brain dead.

Nothing typified this more than statements like those of Bob Lutz, G.M.’s vice chairman. He has been quoted as saying that hybrids like the Toyota Prius “make no economic sense.” And, in February, D Magazine of Dallas quoted him as saying that global warming “is a total crock of [expletive].”

These are the guys taxpayers are being asked to bail out.

And please, spare me the alligator tears about G.M.’s health care costs. Sure, they are outrageous. “But then why did G.M. refuse to lift a finger to support a national health care program when Hillary Clinton was pushing for it?” asks Dan Becker, a top environmental lobbyist.

Not every automaker is at death’s door. Look at this article that ran two weeks ago on autochannel.com: “ALLISTON, Ontario, Canada — Honda of Canada Mfg. officially opened its newest investment in Canada — a state-of-the art $154 million engine plant. The new facility will produce 200,000 fuel-efficient four-cylinder engines annually for Civic production in response to growing North American demand for vehicles that provide excellent fuel economy.”

The blame for this travesty not only belongs to the auto executives, but must be shared equally with the entire Michigan delegation in the House and Senate, virtually all of whom, year after year, voted however the Detroit automakers and unions instructed them to vote. That shielded General Motors, Ford and Chrysler from environmental concerns, mileage concerns and the full impact of global competition that could have forced Detroit to adapt long ago.

Indeed, if and when they do have to bury Detroit, I hope that all the current and past representatives and senators from Michigan have to serve as pallbearers. And no one has earned the “honor” of chief pallbearer more than the Michigan Representative John Dingell, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee who is more responsible for protecting Detroit to death than any single legislator.

O.K., now that I have all that off my chest, what do we do? I am as terrified as anyone of the domino effect on industry and workers if G.M. were to collapse. But if we are going to use taxpayer money to rescue Detroit, then it should be done along the lines proposed in The Wall Street Journal on Monday by Paul Ingrassia, a former Detroit bureau chief for that paper.

“In return for any direct government aid,” he wrote, “the board and the management [of G.M.] should go. Shareholders should lose their paltry remaining equity. And a government-appointed receiver — someone hard-nosed and nonpolitical — should have broad power to revamp G.M. with a viable business plan and return it to a private operation as soon as possible. That will mean tearing up existing contracts with unions, dealers and suppliers, closing some operations and selling others and downsizing the company … Giving G.M. a blank check — which the company and the United Auto Workers union badly want, and which Washington will be tempted to grant — would be an enormous mistake.”

I would add other conditions: Any car company that gets taxpayer money must demonstrate a plan for transforming every vehicle in its fleet to a hybrid-electric engine with flex-fuel capability, so its entire fleet can also run on next generation cellulosic ethanol.

Lastly, somebody ought to call Steve Jobs, who doesn’t need to be bribed to do innovation, and ask him if he’d like to do national service and run a car company for a year. I’d bet it wouldn’t take him much longer than that to come up with the G.M. iCar.

I think the path to salvation for mankind is connected to our ability to tap into our unconscious. The final frontier is the human mind- not the sub-atomic world, and not space ‘out there’ extending for millions of light-years.

From where I sit, the path looks pretty long.

By the unconscious, I mean that (keep in mind I am a rank amateur who professes no expertise) part of the mind that consists of the warehouse of instincts, desires, repressed thoughts, past thoughts and memories, etc. that affect our conscious thoughts and feelings, often though we are unaware of these influences.

Recently, with a group of good friends, the tool we used to tap was wine. I can’t say that we made any significant discoveries, but it was fun trying.

The effort wasn’t about anything as lofty as salvation. Maybe salvaging is more accurate, as in salvaging or saving a relationship.

As we shared stories and asked questions of one another, I was reminded of this seemingly counterintuitive truth; many of our problems are self-created. And the ones that aren’t are never ‘solved’ by blaming others.

The essence of blaming is wasted energy. Actually, it may be more accurate to say that excessive blaming is wasted energy.

As we review our life problems, and the conflict in relationships, sorting out who did what and how the other persons’ actions or inactions were unsatisfactory- assignment of fault- is normal and perhaps useful to a point.

But it doesn’t take long before it becomes wasted energy. And often an exercise in ego protecting indulgence.

The answers for difficulties reside inside us. For me, it seems like scouring my own behavior is usually the best place to start.

And I have been guilty of some doozies over the years. I have made mistakes. Plenty of them. My treatment of others has been at times shameful, both in commission and omission.

Wish I could take them back. But I can’t.

So it seems like learning why is a useful effort. And I think our unconscious holds the information that can inform and instruct. But we don’t know how to go there, are too afraid to go there (is real self-knowledge something to be feared?) or we lounge lazily in that garden of perennial delight, the blame place.

All roads (or nearly all) lead back to us.

Did you come from a family that didn’t provide the necessary ‘tools’ for life? Did they provide enough to make you strong? Or were things cold and distant? Were you ignored? In what ways were you told- maybe not overtly, but the message was there- that you were unimportant? Were boundaries weak? Were there substance problems? Did you have valuable role models, or was that missing?

For those reading this who can claim, correctly, that you were provided everything you needed- good for you.

There seems to be, however, a number of ways we reach adulthood without the tools we need. Those gaps show up in the crucible of relationship development. Sometimes they are critical deficits that bring down primary relationships, like marriages.

I am not suggesting self-blame as a solution. I am saying that wounding we experience as children from incorrect or inappropriate messages we receive (and perhaps beyond) can sometimes hinder our ability to problem-solve and overcome difficulties in our relationships. We often interpret these things as faults of the other person. Indeed, many times there is truth- or some degree of it- to that interpretation. But as a path to meaningful progress, this is not a satisfactory way. We need to look deeply at our own culpability. Bailing out with “he/she did it” is a shallow, incomplete solution. When we dig deep, we make discoveries.

The road to interpreting these things leads back to us. Find out how to do that. You will do less blaming, and more growing.

For good information about the unconscious and the richness it can provide for your life, go to THE authoritative source- Carl Jung. There’s a reason why The Beatles put him on their album (Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band) and why Sting refers to him on The Police album Synchronicity.

I will close with this little gem about ‘blaming’ from Eva Pierrakos and Judith Saly in their book Creating Union:

When people whose spiritual development is on different levels are involved with one another, it is always the more highly developed person who is responsible for the relationship. Specifically, that person is responsible for searching the depths of the interaction which creates any friction and disharmony between the parties.

The less developed person is not as capable of such a search, being still in a state of blaming the other and depending on the other’s doing “right” in order to avoid unpleasantness or frustration. Also, the less developed person is always caught up in the fundamental error of duality. From his or her perspective any friction is seen in terms of “only one of us is right.” A problem in the other automatically seems to whitewash this person, although in reality his or her own negative involvement may be infinitely more weighty than the other person’s.

The spiritually more developed person is capable of realistic, non-dualistic perception. That person may see that either one of you may have a deep problem, but that does not eliminate the importance of the possibly much lesser problem of the other one. The more developed one will always be willing and able to search for his or her own involvement whenever he or she is negatively affected, no matter how blatantly at fault the other may be. A person of spiritual and emotional immaturity and crudeness will always put the bulk of the blame on the other. All this applies to any kind of relationship: mates, parents and children, friendships, or business contacts.”

Today’s post is a nod to George Carlin, the brilliant recently-deceased comedian.

Two days ago in New York state (black Friday, November 28, 2008) a Walmart employee was killed when a mob crashed through the doors of the Long Island store in a rush to start that days holiday shopping.

Here is a partial account of the incident from newYorktimes.com:

Suddenly, witnesses and the police said, the doors shattered, and the shrieking mob surged through in a blind rush for holiday bargains. One worker, Jdimytai Damour, 34, was thrown back onto the black linoleum tiles and trampled in the stampede that streamed over and around him. Others who had stood alongside Mr. Damour trying to hold the doors were also hurled back and run over, witnesses said.

Some workers who saw what was happening fought their way through the surge to get to Mr. Damour, but he had been fatally injured, the police said. Emergency workers tried to revive Mr. Damour, a temporary worker hired for the holiday season, at the scene, but he was pronounced dead an hour later at Franklin Hospital Medical Center in Valley Stream.

Four other people, including a 28-year-old woman who was described as eight months pregnant, were treated at the hospital for minor injuries.

In my book that qualifies as astonishing.

Carlin had plenty of material making fun of our crazy consumerism-obsessed culture. A lot of it was hilarious. Some of it was painful. But it usually was insightful and (should have) made you think.

I can’t help but think of Carlin’s riffs on ‘the decrepit state of the American culture’ when I read of this incident.

Carlin lamented, in biting humor and commentary, what he saw as our sad state of affairs and really a collective lapse of responsibility for what matters in this world. That included (though wasn’t limited to) paying attention, asking questions of authority, being responsible, and generally conducting ourselves like adults should.

He was especially hard on America. He thought we were becoming fat, lazy and stupid.

When I read a story about a group of people stomping a young person to death in a frenzy of shopping madness, it is hard to argue with Carlin’s point-of-view.

That, in a nutshell, is what Carlin would classify as evidence that homo sapiens are ‘circling the drain.’ That aphorism was something he referenced in a video trailer called “Too Hip for the Room” contained in the recent DVD release titled “It’s Bad For ‘Ya.”

In the video segment Carlin is straighforward and direct. He says more or less that he is convinced that we are in an inexorable decline that will not have a good ending. And he sardonically adds that he is ‘removed from it all now, no longer invested in the culture and no longer interested in any of it.’

He says that all of us are ‘born into a freak show. And those of us born in the United States have a front-row seat.’

To get the full effect of Carlin and his comedy/philosophy check out the video. Or check out YouTube and spend a few minutes on any number of subjects he irreverently skewers.

George Carlin, you were “too hip for the room.”

Does packaging ever frustrate you? It seems like it could be done better. So many items are, well, nearly out of reach. Or at least beyond easy accessibility. Or just poorly executed.

I consider myself a fairly strong guy. I have big hands, and I can tell you that I sometimes need all that strength to get things open. I don’t know how folks without a strong grip do it.

Other things are difficult in other ways.

Here are a few things that are harder to open than they should be:

1. teeth whitening strips- wow, where are they? it’s like someone decided to give them their own special kind of camouflage. Come on, manufacturer, with just a little effort these could come out of hiding. Don’t be bashful. We want you. We bought you, didn’t we?

2. string cheese- what the hell? Ok, the idea to pull apart the wrapping makes perfect sense, but the part where you (the manufacturer) fail to do your part- namely, to make the two different sides in a way I can grab onto…what gives? The packaging sure doesn’t.

I have two requests with these. I’m not asking for much:

a. I want to see the two sides, preferably without an electron microscope.

b. I want to be able to grip them without having to flick, flick, flick, flick, flick (unsuccessfully) at two wafer-thin pieces of plastic until the cheese molds before my eyes.

3. new shirts- does there have to be 35 stick pins in these?

4. cd’s- don’t even attempt these without a tool. No wonder sales are off. Sure, the wide availability of downloads is the main reason, but this packaging isn’t helping.

5. how about those plastic covers that entomb things like, oh, staplers, a new mouse for your computer, a kitchen faucet, those types of things? These plastic covers are like WORK baby. You need a Skilsaw to get into your stapler-mouse-faucet-whatever thingy. It’s like a gym workout. You need to shower afterwards.

6. how about those bags with shredded cheese? They often have a ‘peel this strip back’ design that gets you to the main zipper opening. But all too often the ‘peel this strip back’ antecedent is a disaster. You pull at the spot where it says, and the plastic gets all mucked up. I now just start with a scissor.

7. pop cans- ever notice that these cannot be opened without that one or two drop splatter? I want that fixed. Come on, we built Alcatraz and Guantanamo…we should be able to contain that renegade pop drop.

8. cereal box/bag combos- 35 years of Fruit Loops (or is it Froot?) and still no better way to split that bag at the top? Geez, ask an intern. What, is there some kind of calculation that says a million boxes opened poorly that lead to spilled contents means buyers return to the grocery store quicker?

I know there are many more but I would like you, the reader, to now weigh in on this weighty topic. Come on people, vent.  Rip this subject open!

Quick, it’s almost Thanksgiving. (oh yeah…that wire harness around the turkey’s legs!…man you almost need the jaws of life to sever that piece of steel)