Welcome to our Editorial Archive!

Remarks below have appeared in the editions indicated. Choose from the following:

About Celebrity   About Smell   About Waiting   About Words   About Height   About the Holidays

About Team Sports:   Originally broadcast in Winter 2005

Maybe it is a direct result of our collective rights to vote? I suppose everyone wants to root for the winning team. Maybe it is a passionate response to an issue of personal consequence? Maybe we define ourselves in some way by declaring our affiliations? Maybe we merely leap onto the winning bandwagon. Maybe we are desperate to display a sense of identity.  

  Whatever the reason, perhaps you have noticed recently that America is increasingly polarized. No, not the wearing of sunglasses that reduce glare… I’m talking about the way individuals have allied themselves AND how casual terms in the media have posited groups into rashly generalized formats. Hot or cold? Plus or minus? Left or right? Are you with us or against us? Apparently the gray areas have disappeared entirely or become irrelevant. It’s 100% or nothing!

  I believe it was Winston Churchill who delivered the famous quote: “If you are young and not a liberal you have no heart. If you are old and not a conservative you have no brain.”  But these days Americans are much more likely to be lumped into one group or another regardless of the truth. Liberal or conservative has become another team sport like Lakers or Heat, Red Sox or Yankees, Democrat or Republican? Catholic or Protestant... Notre Dame, Chicago Cubs, Pro-Choice… get the picture? It certainly doesn’t help to have arrogant, self possessed ‘ratings seekers’ ply their craft on the air waves every day. So far as I can tell the world of Rush Limbaugh is comprised of Liberals, Conservatives and Appeasers. How very convenient!

  It doesn’t end there. Recent television shows divide viewers into camps by giving them the chance to vote on the best singer. Rueben Stoddard or Clay Aikens... which were you? The best dancer, the best employee, the best bride or groom or actor or Hilton! Who will be voted off the island next? We feel exonerated if we have chosen correctly. There have been other contests since.

  So what are you? Coke or Pepsi? Import or Domestic? Cotton or Polyester? East coast, west coast… it is a continual game of ‘one-ups-man-ship’. Can you bake a cherry pie… well I can!

About Celebrity:   Originally broadcast in July of 2004

What would your world be like if everyone knew you by a single name? Cher, Elton, Sting, Madonna, Elvis, Beyonce, Prince (or the artist formerly known as... now a symbol) … pretty cool huh? What if you had your own phrase, after all Billy Joel is the ‘Piano Man’, Julia Roberts is the ‘Pretty Woman’. Madonna is also the ‘Material Girl’ but now we hear that she is changing her name to ‘Esther’. These are the celebrities of our time. They are the darlings of media. Just like Cary Grant or Jean Harlow; Monroe, Garland, Gable… they certainly have talent. The later having great dentifrice as well being rather uncommon in those days. It made them far more photogenic than other artists of the day. Dentistry is cheaper now.

Celebrity has been defined for us in so many ways. One movie has stated that celebrity has become an 'apotheosis' (that being the elevation of a person to the rank of deity). We reject flaws in our heroes (look at Michael Jackson’s support). People once became famous because they were special. However, today many are considered to be special because they are famous. Andy Warhol was right; everyone does get his or her 15 minutes of fame and in some cases very much more. Kato Kaylin, Anna Nicole Smith, Paris Hilton or Nicole Richie appears to possess no discernible talent. 

It is a truly curious development of modern media. Americans in particular are enamored with the wealthy and the powerful. Magazines, entire shows and even entire cable networks are devoted to tracking the exploits of celebrity. Media exposure is so powerful that the public becomes aware in a virtual moment when someone has gained notoriety (or infamy as the case may be). Jeff Peterson has actually received numerous marriage proposals while the murder investigation of his wife Lacie continues.

Fame is much more about ones physical appearance than ever before. An attractive person is automatically credited with enviable traits and skills simply because they have ‘eye appeal’. Thanks to MTV and television in general we have become a visual culture! We presume that an appealing, attractive or glamorous person must also be compassionate, sensitive and philanthropic as well. We automatically attribute to them wisdom and resourcefulness and intelligence! This may even help to explain the current crisis in pop music, that being one of ‘form over content’.

It is an astonishing assumption given the actualities. Less attractive people generally have more complete personalities. They have to shine from within. Attractive people are generally accepted for their looks and do not have to work so hard on their personalities. Reality check: the most attractive people in your high school classes were likely the hardest to get along with!

About Height:   Originally broadcast in May of 2004

Humans have had a love affair with height throughout history. The highest mountain, the tallest building, a tall ship or a high-flying plane... even trips to the moon!  Perhaps it is only about achieving 'a view from the top'. But I think there's more! 'Reaching for the stars' is a well-known mantra to generations of dreamers. We love the top…

The top of the hill, the top of the stairs, the penthouse views; the tallest tree can be seen from furthest away. As a culture we revere height, especially tall people. Abe Lincoln was tall. Anthony Robbins… tall. A tall person has power unavailable to the smaller of us. Chances of getting your own way are directly related to your height. Political candidates, basketball players, cruise directors and even State Troopers are selected partly because they have a 'look' that includes height.

Classic literature portrays women 'gazing up into the eyes' of their lover. Tall women can be imposing and intimidating. Men rather prefer to be the tallest person in a relationship. A really tall woman seems to defuse the male gender role. Knowing this, I think women choose to dress in heels!

Short people have their own syndrome… 'Short man's syndrome'. There is no such parallel for being tall. Short people have a reputation for being 'scrappy'. Tall people have a more languorous presence.

About Smell:   Originally broadcast in May of 2003

Dogs are reputed to have something like 200 times more olfactory receptors in their capacious snouts than do we humans. This makes them excellent if unpredictable allies in the search for contraband. The turkey buzzard can locate rotten meat from miles away using their sensitive olfactory setup. Scent marking is an important method of communicating territory as well as declaring gender (and receptivity) in all four legged creatures. Moose and Rhinoceros even create hollows or ‘middens’ on the ground as a kind of 'scent station'. Can an animal really smell fear?

Miami is one of the few places in the world where a car can pass you on the street at 40 miles per hour (with the windows up) and the cologne of the operator will linger! Ships are one of the few places in the world where your waiter can pass you at dinner only to send a new wave of BO wafting over your meal. It’s really off-putting but most people are way too polite to mention it. Some cultures have little access to water and so showering daily is a new concept. Still it is an odd experience to smell the janitor’s body odor three floors away!

Humans probably no longer respond to pheromones. Those little indicators of identity popular with the animal kingdom have been disguised beneath layers of scented drier sheets, detergent, spray starch, deodorant, scented soaps, shampoo, toothpaste, mouthwash, body lotion, hair spray, styling gel and of course perfume to name a few.

Some people prefer natural smells. We line closets with cedar because it’s wholesome and neutral. Napoleon would dispatch a rider to Josephine a few days before returning home asking that she not bath… apparently he liked her scent. Not surprisingly it was the French who would excel in combining oils to make perfumes and colognes both pleasing and costly!

Smells can transport us back to a moment in time. Our mothers cooking, the perfume of an ex-lover, the copy machine, a Christmas tree, a pencil, a magazine, a teacher’s really terrible mouth odor… you know what I mean. God forbid someone should smell beer on your breath!

About Waiting:  Originally broadcast in June of 2003

Waiting. You’d think that in today’s super fast business environment that there would be a lot less waiting around. Today we enjoy cell phones and email and faxes and expressways and high occupancy vehicle lanes and mass transit and instant credit approval and cable news and satellite TV and none of these conveniences can eliminate or help us accept lines at the check out counter. God forbid we are stuck behind someone who’s writing a check!

The truth is that society takes great liberties with our time. Rush hour traffic… forget about it! It’s certainly the bane of life in a big city. In Miami it can take 70 minutes to drive eight miles during the morning rush hour. Lines are so long that fledgling industries now avail themselves of the time we are stuck in traffic. Solicitors wander driver to driver, vehicle to vehicle trying to sell whatever you’ll buy. OR… perhaps it’s only someone collecting money.

Ever try to call your local phone company? “For instructions in English press one. To route your call correctly press two on your touch tone phone. Choose from the following five options. Choose from the following three options. Choose from the following six options. Visit us on line or call our automated service. Please wait while we connect you with a representative. We estimate your hold time to be 6 minutes.”  And that’s presuming you have called the correct department to begin.

They know we’re stuck on the phone and so they ply us with ads. Looped audio of how terrific is their new service with an occasional ‘Your call is very important to us. Stay on the line and your call will be answered in the order it was received’. It’s worse if you call your bank or your credit card people. They want to have the whole 16 digit account number right up front... and more than once!

So one day while standing in line at the post office I did some math. If you wait only 30 minutes a week (a conservative estimate considering the supermarket, the bank, the gas station, the traffic lights and of course ‘hold please’) by months end you will have been in line for two hours. By the end of the year your cumulative total has reached 24 hours. One entire day spent waiting. After 20 years you’ll likely have enough time invested to take a three week vacation!

And we love our vacations. We can hardly wait to get into line at the airport or the cruise terminal or the cinema or the zoo. How satisfying it is waiting to be seated at a table in our favorite restaurant. We wait for luggage, our food and our drinks, and a taxi.

About Words:   Originally broadcast in October of 2003

Have you ever thought about words? Words have lives like seasons of the year. We no longer ‘speaketh’ as ‘thou’ and ‘doth’ or ‘verily’. That would be old English. Jargon comes into and goes out of style. Expressions such as ‘23 skidoo’ and ‘vodeodo’ are soon displaced with newer incarnations like ‘swell’, ‘nifty’ and ‘keen’; lapsing in turn allowing ‘cool’ and ‘far out’ and ‘solid’ the new ’choice’ terms of a generation. Don’t forget ‘hot’, ‘slammin’ or the Jackson hit ‘bad’.

Today our phrases are different still like ‘phat’ (spelled with a PH) and ‘fresh’ and ‘large’. If it’s really ‘sweet’ it can be ‘dope’ or even ‘sick’.

In today’s best business grammar expressions have been greatly updated. Our culture has become politically correct. The new environment reflects the changing comprehension. It is now nearly impossible to purchase a ‘used car’. They’re all pre-owned! Employment offices have morphed into ‘human resource’ divisions. TV doesn’t even permit us the chance to view a re-run anymore; we are given instead ‘encore presentations’. ‘Loss prevention’, that is how retailers refer to store security. Show up wearing old clothes and you have the ‘retro’ look. Still driving an old car, no no no it’s a ‘vintage’ ride.

English has suffered terribly in the hands of our newest generation. Names generally spelled with ‘I’s’ now feature ‘y’s’ instead. Media embraces all manner of devices like ‘infomercials’ and ‘sitcoms’ and ‘infotainment’. These are new words and each year we add them to the lexicon of our language. There are others: ‘pleather’, ‘spork’ etc. I recently read the fiscal policy of candidate Schwarzenegger referred to as ‘Schwarzenomics’.

It is only appropriate that we offer an updated expression of our own. ‘Heliochopper’, how about that?

About the Holidays:  Originally broadcast in Winter of 2004

Remember when Halloween used to be spooky! Not undyingly grim, gory, demonic or otherwise unconquerably evil. The subtle charm of donuts and cider or caramel apples has been usurped by the monster or novelty costume of the day (sometimes only a politician’s face), and for most a costume that doesn’t require too much effort. I always thought the idea was to give someone ‘the creeps’, not to terrorize them into Exorcism hell! It’s too dangerous for kids to even go door to door these days. Have you ever wondered how many pumpkins are squandered each year (no one really knows)? It is an excess that makes the time too salty or too sweet and unpalatable. Not to mention that this is also about the time Christmas decorations appear on retail shelves.

We were told in grade school that Thanksgiving was a tribute to the Pilgrims. Did you know that more than half the complement of the Mayflower perished at sea or in the first year due to the harsh conditions? The banquet forged with Native Americans was meant to inaugurate a time of prosperity and deliverance. A staggering 50 million turkeys will be slaughtered for this holiday alone. Still the observance seems to be slipping away as vendors ‘skip’ directly from Halloween to Christmas. Apparently Thanksgiving isn’t as lucrative as the other dates.

That brings us to Christmas. Once my favorite time of year, now I barely celebrate. I still love the sentiment. The aromatic tree and sparkling lights, a choice gift to please someone dear and wrapped pristinely. Pine boughs and cinnamon and frosted window panes. Nativities and carolers and … how things have changed! Christmas carols have become a form of psychological terrorism! There are no new carols. We hear the same 20 or 30 tunes over and over again from different artists and in different pitches and registers and arrangements. We grow pine trees on land that could be used for survival crops (over a million acres) and blithely discard them at seasons end. Land fills struggle with tremendous piles of trash and each year we shuffle off yet more tons of wrapping paper and containers and boxes and ribbons meant only for a single moment. If anyone from outer space was to look in we’d be judged as idiots!

Our path to excess has all but become unworkable. These traditions were fine for a small population but we are that no longer. The holidays can mean a great deal to us without these excesses. Choose a meaningful representation. Keep the spirit and lose the bulk. Bigger is not necessarily better. The biggest pumpkin or turkey or the tallest tree or the largest number of gifts isn’t the most important facet of the holidays… you’ll have to figure out what’s most important to you. As my Dad would say: ‘Take care of the small things and the big things will take care of themselves.’!

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