CHRISTMAS

One can make the case that “this season to be Jolly” is a code phrase for commercial madness.  It is surely that.  But beyond, or in spite of this, there is a loss of holy memory, generations of tradition and a whole lot more.  It's not just the department store sales craziness and the eternal playing of Feliz Navidad. It is the “something's missing” feeling.

One neighbor down the lane has a sign that reads “Put Christ back in Christmas.” At first I thought he was a religious fanatic.  But he's not. He is just an ordinary guy who urges passersby to rethink what this time of year is all about.  Nowadays, I agree with him.

When I was a little guy my brothers and I sat at our mother's knee while she read us the story of Jesus Christ and his birth long ago in some faraway place called Bethlehem. It had great impact on us then, and still has in spite of innumerable klutzy readings in religious settings by well-intentioned souls. So that's where I am coming from, supporting a sense of reverence trying to survive in a swamp of hucksterism.

Working in Manhattan for decades had me a goy among the Jewish crowd.  I had reverence for their traditions and holy days, Passover especially.  I respected too where they are coming from.

My personal hope is that we ALL pause and remember what is really worth remembering. And by the way, giving gifts is part of the tradition, just as those notables did when they visited that newborn lying in a manger. 

The Slippery Slope to Sexual Harassment

(He) “Moonlight becomes you; it goes with your hair. You certainly know the right thing to wear...”

 (She) Thank you, Bing.......We'll see you in court.

Bing Crosby directed these words to Dorothy Lamour in Road to Morroco, a very successful movie way back in 1942. None of us needs to be told that the times have been a-changin' since then. Nowadays men are increasingly wary of what they say to women. Tip-toeing is making a comeback.

Being High and Mighty is perilous if you are going to keep that frat boy mentality. Every day a prominent personality is in the news for alleged physical or verbal abuse of a woman. None of us takes this issue lightly. In the minds of many, including this writer, true sexual abuse of a woman is reason enough to justify the death penalty. Certainly the issue is worth another look, so let's do that.

Speaking about myself and many other men I know, males admittedly are not 24/7 the swiftest of God's creations. But in the main they are likable guys who mostly try to do good as they lumber along in this vale of tears. That's the premise. Second, the environment surrounding them is dangerous all by itself. Advertising in print and broadcasting hammer the same theme day after day: youthful female attractiveness. Beauty products are designed (and named) to attract the eyes of both sexes, but the gaze of women especially. From their earliest days women hear about “being pretty”.  As the years roll by they are urged to gain and/or retain their appeal to men. Stay young, avoid wrinkles. Theirs is a brutal test of time.

Magazines flaunt young women's appeal, partially clothed, or less than. Pin-up photos of a sexy someone adorned the foot lockers of men in the military and the dorms they returned to after service. It has always been so, but nowadays things have gotten totally out of control in an age of no restraint at all. Good manners, common decency and respect for womanhood have been lost to boorish behavior.  Who loses? Yes, women first and foremost, but really all of us get hurt.  Absolutely, women have to stand up, report and be more than brave in facing these idiots.  But gentlemen, you and I have to rally and protect all women. We have to change our mindset and think of every woman singled out for an indecent remark as our sister, sweetheart or spouse. 

The days of light-hearted flirtations are over. We are now in far sterner times. There should be some middle ground between recognizing attractiveness by giving compliments and being sued.  But I'll be darned if I know where that middle ground is given the wide range of opinion among ourselves, plus the vested interests from the left or right. And further, if there was a Citizens Code for Compliments, who would set those standards?

For decades we summed it up nicely in memorable music and words like “a pretty girl is like a melody that haunts you night and noon.”  But no one wants to sing that tune while doing time in the slammer.      

Football: Sport or Burlesque?

There are many issues that divide us here in this great country of ours. The big unifier is that we are all Americans, a force that can stand up to everything else. Our various opinions are protected because of that freedom.

Today, fellow sports lovers, our topic is Football and the issue of insane “celebrations” on and off the field.

When players shower and leave the locker room to re-enter the public world, we expect them to conform to generally accepted standards of conduct and decency. Which means, among other things, no spousal abuse, violence with or without weapons outside strip clubs and a range of other things that embarrass us all. Don't you cringe when the newspapers and broadcast media report yet another incident featuring a prominent athlete? Where is the sense of responsibility and accountability to society (including you and me) and especially to the young boys and girls who worship these “stars”?  Individual players, like the rest of us, have to step up and understand duty. For if we don't, the media will continue to play this same note time and again to our mutual shame.

The other issue is one that we, the football fans of the USA, have yet to clearly voice our opinion on. Is football truly a sport, albeit a very hazardous one, OR, is it an entertainment spectacle with pushing, shoving and tackling followed by giddy prancing and dancing in the end zone? To the fore rush those who say “that's my freedom to express myself”. True. But there are many ways to express joy and celebration that make sense. Executing antic behavior in the end zone is not one of them, at least after the age of 10 or 11.

A football player passing on bad “celebrating” examples to younger generations is (almost) as bad as the consistent spitting, spitting, spitting by baseball players. We NFL fans certainly have a right to object to it. If Roger Goodell is still in the job at the start of next season, write to the commissioner and tell him so.

CONFESSION

In another era altogether the Church of Rome had a sacrament called “Confession”.  They still have a form of this today, as does the Episcopal Church and other denominations, but the original version widely practiced in America is but a memory.  And what a memory.

If you were a kid in the 1930s or 1940s “going to confession” hung over your head like a big, sharp ax. Individuals went into a dark confessional box to say aloud their transgressions before God. For youngsters in parochial schools there was no escape. The positions of parents back then were formidable. A youngster did not lie to his/her parents. (This was all before some families let their little darlings call mother or dad by their first names as in “Kay, what's for dinner tonight?” Or “Charlie, I have a big date tonight, can you give me a couple bucks?”) When a parent asked on Saturday night “did you go to confession?” there was no wiggle room.

All of which brings us to Harvey Weinstein.

Harvey has made it rough to be Jewish. But before we others could escape, along came the news of Bill O'Reilly paying out big dollars to settle sexual harassment suits brought by a number of women. So it was a tough day for wearing of the green too. Few of us who were past the age of reason at the time of the Communist infiltration hearings will ever forget the distinguished lawyer, Joseph P. Welsh, challenging the dreaded Senator McCarthy.  'Have you no decency, sir, at long last?  Have you no sense of decency?” A good question to put to Harvey, O'Reilly and the other power people who demean, or try to demean, women.

“Confession is good for the soul” the saying goes.  But high ticket lawyers and platoons of PR people cannot make a case for the guilty. Perhaps we need to bring back the old days of the dark confessional box and all its sweat-inducing anxiety to force genuine contrition from perpetrators. Short of that every mother's son, husband and brother of decent women should stand up and say we are not going to allow sexual harassment to continue.  Ever. 

WASP

On our way into the supermarket the other day, I past a man wearing a Cavalry insignia on his ball cap. “Thank you for your service,” I said.  Later when I passed him again while walking the eternal aisles, he asked me, “Were you in?” I replied, “Yes, a long time ago, Korea.” He said “Oh, Korea is not that long ago. If you said World War Two, that would have been a long time ago.”

Well Korea was a long time ago, and I have the knees and back to prove it. 1950 seems like forever ago to me, as I'm sure it does to a lot of other men and women of my generation.  However, that long ago, which was not so long ago to my younger friend, reminded me of our shortcomings when it comes to public awareness of history, geography, and most especially our national heritage. One survey showing that 20% of our citizenry were unsure of whether  we cut the cord from Great Britain in 1776 or some other country, including Afghanistan.

There is much to be learned about these United States of American, past, present and future. This task might well be overwhelming.  It might be best to look at things in bite size portions. World War II the most horrific of our many wars is a good starting point. So what do you know about WASPs?  That's right, WASPs. Not the White Anglo Saxon Protestants, formerly so much in vogue along Philadelphia's Main Line and other bastions of Ye Olde Guarde. Nor are we focusing on that insect with the terrible sting. Ours is another WASP – the Women Airforce Service Pilots – largely unheralded in their own time and virtually unknown to the several generations that followed.

Your mother or grandmother can probably tell you about Rosie the Riveter and the important role women played in substituting for male factory workers called to uniform during that wartime. But they may have less information about the women who substituted for the pilots bound for combat. This was the unique role played by a thousand women who tested experimental military aircraft, towed targets for ammunition practice and shuttled fighter planes and flying officers across the USA. 38 of these WASPs lost their lives in service to their country. Only a few years ago did Congress finally authorize veteran status to these valiant women.

Now there are less than 100 former WASP pilots remaining.  A memorial to them is being put in place at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, Texas. It's an exciting story to read. Go to: www.waspmuseum.org

YOU NEVER KNOW

 “You never know”.  How many times have I used that cliché?  How many times have you? Still the question fits perfectly with our state of mind when we are shocked. “What happened in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas” is another cliché. Except that the murder of dozens of innocents and the injuries of hundreds more should not have happened in Las Vegas or anywhere else.

                 

Hard on the heels of that insanity came the news that my longtime associate, Peter Giuliano, died unexpectedly from a heart attack. Peter and I had not seen each other for years, but he was never far from my mind. He was successful, a leader, with decades of promise left in his outstanding career. But you never know.

30 or 40 years ago I received a phone call from Dr. Virginia Miles, the highly respected pioneer in breaking the glass ceiling for women in advertising.  Nobody in their right mind would fail to take a call from Virginia. And I didn't.  She told me about a neighbor, a young man she said had extraordinary talent, but had not found the right niche in his professional life. Would I interview him and see if he would be right for our business of coaching executives for public speaking, leading stockholder meetings and the whole range of communications challenges that face those in the leadership suite. Done and done.

Peter was trained for the stage.  His hard working mother sacrificed everything to insure he was given the best of acting classes, voice lessons, every aspect of preparation for the footlights. I thought at the time, and still do, that he was a youngish John Barrymore. Some aspects of this flair had to be tempered in our business where we were more “coach” than “performer”. His other gifts were extraordinarily well suited for client companies just as they were. Peter had an uncanny ability to “read” his audiences, small or large. Only then would he move into racing gear. I think of one assignment in a Philadelphia hotel ballroom where he spoke to 1200 elevator repairmen. He received a standing ovation! We sent him to Sweden to work with an engineering firm. He turned that small bit of business into a giant money maker.

                                 

And that magnificent singing voice!  When Joan and I were married, I asked him to sing “Danny Boy” at our reception. It wasn't just the bride and groom crying that day.

While it is quite true that we never know when tragedy will come into our lives, there are other times when we will know it full well. Peter, with his larger than life personality, was first and foremost a loving father to his daughter, his sons and the four lights of his life grandchildren. Now their unspeakable loss will eventually settle in side by side with the certain knowledge that Peter loved each of them beyond words.

That they will ever know.         

OUR AMERICAN FLAG

The American Flag is our flag.  It is not just yours, not just mine. It is OURS. It symbolizes our country like nothing else. 

The American Dream is still a work in progress.  It always will be. We are talking about human frailty here. You and I are imperfect, just like the rest of our citizenry. Yes, we have many things to improve, but the United States of America is still the best hope for humanity. 

Go ahead and try to envision a perfect nation of YOU, or ME. Good luck with that one. You can think of people right now who won't want to be part of the country of YOU. I certainly can name dozens of men and women who will not want to join me in my country of ME.

Football, far and away America's favorite pastime, is embroiled in a terrible mess because certain players will not stand up to honor our National Anthem and our Flag. Repeated talk about it and endless video play of this tradition-shattering moment has incited the strongest of reactions. Because ¾ of the NFL players are Black and ¾ of its fans are White it is already a powder keg because so many people think narrowly, not in terms of US. Now intemperate remarks, starting with those from the President of the United States and including leading athletes of several sports, has thrown gasoline on a roaring fire. Reasoned voices are not heard amid the shouted accusations and self-serving posturing.

Over recent years some have worried that we will eventually face a conflict between Muslims and Christians. My own worry is that we are roaring right into a war between Whites and Blacks. Economics also play into the mess: Hispanic annual income has improved significantly. Whites continue to benefit from improved finances (although at a lesser pace than Hispanics.) Asian income has grown dramatically while Black income has essentially decreased.

Surely the stakes are so high we should expect national bridge-makers to establish workable communication links between Blacks and Whites. Or, can we? Personal comfort and dollars, the Devil's prized tools, may yet triumph over the Golden Rule. In the end, it may take the little guys at the local level, like you and me, to bring sanity back.