Be Careful What You Wish For

“Be careful what you wish for.” I’m sure we’ve all heard that warning from time to time, and I think it applies in the circumstance I am about to address.

The have been an inordinate amount of e-mail messages lately calling for a constitutional convention to add a 28th amendment to The United States Constitution. It takes three-quarters of the states, 38 in all, to call for the convention, and there are apparently 35 states that have called for it so far.

In case you live in the dark, the proposed 28th amendment—it doesn’t get capital letters until it becomes law—calls for Congress to only pass laws that apply equally to the senators and representatives in that august body as well as the citizens they seek to impose those laws upon. In other words, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

I don’t pretend to be a scholar when it comes to our constitution. Heck, I admit that I couldn’t rattle off the first ten amendments, known as The Bill of Rights, and I’ll wager that none of you could do it either.

I do know that this isn’t the first instance when there has been a hue and cry for a constitutional convention, but I seem to recall that there was a flaw in the procedure. Correct me if I’m wrong, and I hope you can, but when you convene a constitutional convention, you don’t just open the floor for new amendments; the whole document is open for re-interpretation, revision and repeal.

That means that those of us who are fearful of losing our First Amendment rights to free speech, or our Second Amendment rights to bear arms, or any of the rights in the other 25 amendments are in danger of losing some of those rights in the ensuing convention.

I want you to think about that the next time you get one of those mailings that requests you to petition your state representatives and governors to ratify the state’s demand for a constitutional convention.

We may get a lot more than a 28th amendment, and I don’t think we’ll like it one bit.

Road Trip Rage

I recently completed another of my road trips, this one to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I had company on the trip, one of my fellow barbershop singers, and we had a good time and saw lots of great sights.

I could tell you about the trip in general, but I am doing that in a separate reference, so I’ll just say that the UP is a wonderful place to visit if you like lighthouses and waterfalls and forests.

No, this is my bitch session, and the topic is hotel accommodations.

I am a member of Wyndham Rewards® and Choice Privileges®, so I use hotels in those two chains for all of my stays. On this occasion I used Wyndham more than Choice, and I’m sorry that I did. The hotels proved to be less than expected, and the prices weren’t in line with the service.

I try to select hotels with a hot tub, because I feel that the ones with that amenity are of higher class than the “bunk and breakfast” ones. For that reason, I selected Baymont Inn for several of the nights.

The second night out, we stayed at a Baymont Inn that had been in the AmeriHost family of motels. I had stayed at several of those when AmeriHost was still in business, and they were of good quality. This one, however, had been taken over by Wyndham about two years ago and had been allowed to deteriorate horribly. The bed linens were torn and shabby. I took a shower after my hot tub, and found myself standing ankle deep in water by the time I finished. The tub drain was clogged. Yech!!!

We stayed at a Days Inn in Marquette, Michigan for two nights. The first night we didn’t arrive at the hotel until 11 PM, so I had no opportunity to use the hot tub or any other facilities. However, the second night we arrived back early enough. I looked forward to the hot tub, but when I got into the pool area I found the hot tub crowded with screaming kids.

A trip to the front desk to complain was met with the explanation that the hot tub in the pool area was for kids. There was a separate room with only a hot tub on another level, and it was for adults. I started through the pool area to the ramp up to the adult hot tub, only to be followed by a family of the same kids who had been in the first one.

I turned and left the room for another trip to the front desk, lodged my complaint, and then went to my room. A half-hour later I went back to the hot tub, and finally had my soak in peace and quiet. My buddy, Tom, who had remained in the pool area, said the kids were pretty intimidated by my rant, and left soon after I did.

On another note, I looked at the bill after I checked out and was down the road, only to find that I had been charged $1.50 per night for the in-room safe that I never used. The bill said that I could have had the charge removed, but why should the onus be on me to reverse a charge for a service I never opted for in the first place?

Needless to say, I am preparing a letter to the corporate headquarters of Wyndham Hotels to lodge a formal complaint and possibly withdraw any further reservations. I’ve built up quite a number of reward points, but they aren’t much good if the hotels don’t deliver what they promise.

I admit that I am cheap in that I won’t pay over $100 per night for any hotel, and some would say that “you get what you pay for”, but I still think that $100 should get decent accommodations for the night, not some flea-bag hotel with lousy bed sheets and poor or missing services.

There, I’ve got that off my chest!

More Unintended Consequences

I was in a public restroom in one of those interstate rest areas recently with a busload of teenagers and I overheard one boy say to another, “Shun the paper towels and save a tree.”

My first reaction was, how thoughtful of him. But then I reconsidered, because that cliché is being drilled into our kids’ thinking, and it is not necessarily accurate. I wasn’t quick enough to speak my second thought, but it did get me to thinking about it in light of our present economy and the overall indoctrination of today’s youth.

The paper industry, and the lumbering industry that supports it are both very earth-friendly. Big companies like Weyerhauser and International paper employ methods to recycle and to replenish the forests. Why wouldn’t they? Lumber is a crop, and just like any other crop, it has to be planted, nurtured and harvested with a future crop replacing the one we use.

The myth that our forests are clear-cut is just that, a myth. For every tree that is cut down, another two or three are planted in the same land, and they are cared for to ensure that there will be a future crop, albeit the cycle is not an annual one like there is with the food crops.

The fact that new forests are being planted to renew the product cycle is evident to anyone who takes the time to travel to the places in America where the lumber industry practices. And those replanted forests provide jobs for many more people than those who harvest the trees.

For every lumberjack, the brawny brute we picture as the “culprit” in killing our forests, there are probably three others whose work is to develop new breeds of fast-growing trees, planting and inspecting the new growth, and determining where more trees can be planted and harvested to keep the soil and the ecosystem healthy.

Speaking of Weyerhauser, on my trip to the Northwest last year I visited Mount St Helens, and all of the forests replanted to replace those blown down in the 17-mile-radius blast area were courtesy of Weyerhauser. They have been replanting with noble spruce trees since the volcano erupted in 1980. There are tens of thousands of trees growing.

So, if I were to hear that remark about shunning paper to save a tree, I would challenge it with my own cliché, “Use the paper and save a job”.

Disrespect

When I was up in Maryland visiting my son and his family two weeks ago, I went to a swim meet in which my granddaughter and grandson were enrolled. (We don’t compete anymore, as that suggests winners and losers—but that is material for another column.)

The event was held at a public swimming pool in Columbia, Maryland, and there were about 100 adults there, and also 150 juveniles between the age of 4 and 18 years.

To start the meet the emcee played a recording of The Star Spangled Banner and made the usual announcement about standing to honor the nation. This was on a Saturday, two days before Flag Day, so people should have had an extra awareness of the spirit of the National Anthem.

When the song began, I stood and placed my right hand over my heart as is customary, although I sometimes salute the flag in the military fashion, a practice that has recently been recommended for any veterans.

I looked around and was shocked to see that only abut a half-dozen other adults and not a single child was following tradition. Most stood with hands at their sides, a few did take off their hats, and some continued talking and visiting with their neighbors.

The action was so out of place that I stood even taller and at attention, and I moved my hand to the salute for the last phrase just to emphasize the sad situation. No one else responded to my cue.

It is truly sad that we have lost our moral and patriotic compass to a point that we don’t even honor our traditions, our flag, or our National Anthem anymore.

http://www.usflag.org/uscode36.html#171

Of course, it doesn’t help that we have a chief executive who sets the example by also refusing to place his hand over his heart during the playing of The Star Spangled Banner. In fact, he even holds press conferences with no American Flag displayed.

I hope that, if you are one of those who has forgotten or neglected the protocol for the playing of our National Anthem, or if you know someone who has lapsed into the bad habits of so many, you will educate them and set the example on the upcoming day of celebrating our independence.

With that admonition, I wish you a happy and safe Independence Day, which falls on Sunday this year, even though you will probably have Monday off. Celebrate it on the actual day if you can. It is a significant day in our history and deserves our respect.

PS: Remember to thank our military personnel for their service, too.

Hells Canyon and Beyond

When I traveled to the Northwest last year I thought I had seen almost everything I wanted to see. The two exceptions were Mount St Helens–I was unable to get to Wind Ridge and Spirit Lake on the eastern side due to a bridge washout–and the Columbia River Gorge.

Although I had explored extensively on the Oregon side of the Columbia River Gorge, I know that the north side in Washington also has some attractions that I would like to see. Whether or not that would justify another trek of 6-7,000 miles is debatable.

I was watching Jeopardy! Last week when one of the clues was, “At 8,000 feet, it is the deepest canyon in the United States.” The question was, “What is Hells Canyon?”

Well, that got me thinking about where I had seen that name before. With our modern computer age of Google, Yahoo, Bing and several other search engines, it was quite easy to do a search for Hells Canyon. What I learned floored me!

The reason I recalled the name was that I had found Hells Canyon in my search for places to visit on my trip last year. I had seen it when I was planning my journey across I-90 through Idaho and Washington. However, I found that it was too far south and had no easy access from I-90, so I discounted it as a destination.

It never occurred to me to look for a southern access from I-84 in Oregon, the route I used to return from Portland to Boise, Idaho. What I did instead was to turn off I-84 for what promised to be a scenic bypass. Let me quote from my trip journal:

“I did take a detour from the interstate and drove what was named The Elkhorn Scenic Loop. However, it was not very scenic and turned out to be a winding road in poor repair with potholes all along that I had to swerve to avoid. There were absolutely no views that I found interesting or photo-worthy. If I had it to do over again, I would definitely leave that part out.”

After seeing where Hells Canyon was with respect to the Elkhorn Scenic Loop, I realized that I could have gone one exit further to La Grande, Oregon and turned north instead of south to take the Hells Canyon Scenic Loop.

I described the interstate route through Oregon as a long stretch with few towns and no rest areas in my journal, but I just didn’t look in the right places.

Now I’m determined to make another trip to Oregon in the future. However, I won’t drive all the way next time. I’ll fly into Portland and rent a car. In three days I can go to Hells Canyon, up to the other side of Mount St Helens near Spirit Lake, and do some further exploration of the Columbia River Gorge.

My trip for this year is already mapped out, so I won’t even consider the Northwest for this summer. I may plan a fall foliage trip to Oregon for 2011, though.

I have started a new avocation on a website that you might want to visit. I am currently writing one-day road trips complete with photos under a psuedonymn "Road Hawk" for roadtripamerica.com. If you are planning a road trip vacation this year, you can visit the website for advice and ideas on what to see along the way. Give it a try.

Flag Day 2010

Some of you who have been long time readers of my weekly column will know that this is a repeat one. However, Flag Day is this coming Monday, so it is an appropriate topic for this weekend.

Our National Anthem was inspired by events that occurred on the night of September 13, 1814, during the War of 1812. Both it and the more recent attack on 9/11 occurred in the same week of the calendar, though nearly 200 years apart.

Unless you know all four stanzas of the Star Spangled Banner you may find this most interesting. Perhaps most of you didn't realize what Francis Scott Key's profession was or what he was doing on a ship. This is a good brush-up on your history.

Near the end of his life, the great science fiction author Isaac Asimov wrote a short story about the four stanzas of our national anthem. However brief, this well-circulated piece is an eye opener from the dearly departed doctor. In Azimov’s own words, "I have a weakness—I‘m crazy, absolutely nuts, about our national anthem. The words are difficult and the tune is almost impossible, but frequently when I'm taking a shower I sing it with as much power and emotion as I can. It shakes me up every time."

NO REFUGE COULD SAVE: BY DR. ISAAC ASIMOV

I was once asked to speak at a luncheon. Taking my life in my hands, I announced I was going to sing our national anthem -- all four stanzas. This was greeted with loud groans. One man closed the door to the kitchen, where the noise of dishes and cutlery was loud and distracting. "Thanks, Herb," I said.

"That's all right," he said. "It was at the request of the kitchen staff"

I explained the background of the anthem and then sang all four stanzas. Let me tell you, those people had never heard it before -- or had never really listened. I got a standing ovation. But it was not me; it was the anthem.

More recently, while conducting a seminar, I told my students the story of the anthem and sang all four stanzas. Again there was a wild ovation and prolonged applause. And again, it was the anthem and not me.

So now let me tell you how it came to be written.

In 1812, the United States went to war with Great Britain, primarily over freedom of the seas. We were in the right. For two years, we held off the British, even though we were still a rather weak country. Great Britain was in a life and death struggle with Napoleon. In fact, just as the United States declared war, Napoleon marched off to invade Russia. If he won, as everyone expected, he would control Europe, and Great Britain would be isolated. It was no time for her to be involved in an American war.

At first, our seamen proved better than the British. After we won a battle on Lake Erie in 1813, the American commander, Oliver Hazard Perry, sent the message, "We have met the enemy and they are ours." However, the weight of the British navy beat down our ships eventually. New England, hard-hit by a tightening blockade, threatened secession.

Meanwhile, Napoleon was beaten in Russia and in 1814 was forced to abdicate. Great Britain now turned its attention to the United States, launching a three-pronged attack.

The northern prong was to come down Lake Champlain toward New York and seize parts of New England.

The southern prong was to go up the Mississippi, take New Orleans and paralyze the west.

The central prong was to head for the Mid-Atlantic States and then attack Baltimore, the greatest port south of New York. If Baltimore was taken, the nation, which still hugged the Atlantic coast, could be split in two. The fate of the United States, then, rested to a large extent on the success or failure of the central prong.

The British reached the American coast, and on August 24, 1814, took Washington, D.C. Then they moved up the Chesapeake Bay toward Baltimore. On September 12, they arrived and found 1,000 men in Fort McHenry, whose guns controlled the harbor. If the British wished to take Baltimore, they would have to take the fort.

On one of the British ships was an aged physician, William Beanes, who had been arrested in Maryland and brought along as a prisoner. Francis Scott Key, a lawyer and friend of the physician, had come to the ship to negotiate his release.

The British captain was willing, but the two Americans would have to wait. It was now the night of September 13, and the bombardment of Fort McHenry was about to start.

As twilight deepened, Key and Beanes saw the American flag flying over Fort McHenry. Through the night, they heard bombs bursting and saw the red glare of rockets. They knew the fort was resisting and the American flag was still flying. But toward morning the bombardment ceased, and a dread silence fell. Either Fort McHenry had surrendered and the British flag flew above it, or the bombardment had failed and the American flag still flew.

As dawn began to brighten the eastern sky, Key and Beanes stared out at the fort, trying to see which flag flew over it. He and the physician must have asked each other over and over, "Can you see the flag?"

After it was all finished, Key wrote a four-stanza poem telling the events of the night. Called "The Defense of Fort McHenry," it was published in newspapers and swept the nation. Someone noted that the words fit an old English tune called, "To Anacreon in Heaven"—a difficult melody with an uncomfortably large vocal range. For obvious reasons, Key's work became known as "The Star Spangled Banner," and in 1931 Congress declared it the official anthem of the United States.

Now that you know the story, here are the words. Presumably, the old doctor is speaking. This is what he asks Key:

Oh! say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
Oh! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

("Ramparts," in case you don't know, are the protective walls or other elevations that surround a fort.) The first stanza asks a question. The second gives an answer:

On the shore, dimly seen thro' the mist of the deep
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep.
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream
'Tis the star-spangled banner. Oh! long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

"The towering steep" is again, the ramparts. The bombardment has failed, and the British can do nothing more but sail away, their mission a failure. In the third stanza I feel Key allows himself to gloat over the American triumph. In the aftermath of the bombardment, Key probably was in no mood to act otherwise? During World War I when the British were our Staunchest allies, this third stanza was not sung. However, I know it, so here it is:

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footstep's pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

(The fourth stanza, a pious hope for the future, should be sung more slowly than the other three and with even deeper feeling):

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation,
Blest with victory and peace, may the Heaven - rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just,
And this be our motto --"In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

I hope you will look at the national anthem with new eyes. Listen to it, the next time you have a chance, with new ears. Pay attention to the words. And don't let them ever take it away ... not even one word of it.

AND IT'S SUNG IN ENGLISH!!!


I can insert one addendum to that stirring recitation by Dr. Asimov. At a recent Tea Party, Dr. Herman Cain was addressing the throng. One of the last people in the crowd who asked to be heard was a former marine. What follows is his rendition of the “second verse” of the National Anthem, which we now know is actually the fourth and last verse, but it doesn’t detract from the performance and the response from those in attendance.

http://www.therightscoop.com/tea-party-member-stuns-the-crowd

The Oil Boycott

I have several columns ready for publication, but I keep getting other ones that take precedence, and that is the case again this week.

I received one of those “Boycott” emails that call for us to boycott Citgo and Petro Express, because Hugo Chavez owns them. Of course, there are other emails that call for boycotts of Exxon/ Mobile, because they buy most of their oil from Middle East countries, our supposed enemies.

Now Jesse Jackson has proposed a boycott of BP, because they caused this big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. That is a really great idea, because I guess that if we boycott BP they will clean up the oil spill more quickly. Or maybe BP will go out of business. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Well, aside from the fact that if we boycott all of those oil producers we probably won’t be able to buy gasoline from anyone, there is another more onerous problem. When we boycott the gas stations that sell under those brand names, we really aren’t hurting the oil companies. We’re hurting small business owners who are also our neighbors.

The big oil companies have contracts with huge buyers, like the Pentagon, Plastics companies, Power producers, Airlines, Railroads and trucking companies. Yes, Joe Public does use a lot of gasoline, but when he doesn’t buy, the companies raise the price to those other businesses. And guess who pays for those increases?

Another flaw in the boycott plan is that every oil company is part of a pool that shares petroleum from many different parts of the world. No company is fully independent of the others. If you want to boycott companies that buy from Venezuela, you had better boycott them all. Same with Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, Qatar or any other country you can name.

Back to the main reason not to boycott, the ones you really hurt are the little guys who run that particular franchised station. The station name is irrelevant; they all get gasoline from multiple sources, and even they don’t know what company supplied the shipment they got today or yesterday. It might be different every time.

Yes, I’ll admit that I have boycotted Citgo for years. However, I’m beginning to see the light, and this latest oil spill is part of my enlightenment. BP had some part in the spill, but my question is, “Why were they drilling a mile down in the Gulf?” I’ll tell you why, in case you don’t know. They cannot drill closer to shore and in shallow water, because the environmentalists have enough influence that it isn’t allowed by our government.

This huge oil spill wouldn’t have happened at all if BP had been given permission to drill on the continental shelf where they know there is plenty of oil. It would have been a lot less expensive to extract the oil, too, and BP would love that. So blame the federal government and try boycotting them by not paying your taxes. Where do you suppose that will get you?

In summary, quit the boycott fervor and get your gasoline wherever it is least expensive. We’ll all be better off for it in the long run, and you aren’t hurting anybody either way, so take the best option for yourself. I know I’m going to from now on.