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Chanticleer Calls - November 15, 1999
IN THIS ISSUE:
THANKSTAKING
I'm not about to buck dang-near 400 years of tradition, travel and Friday sales by proposing to NOT observe Thanksgiving. However, I suggest possible benefits may derive from approaching Thanksgiving in a little bit different manner this year. As you prepare to thank everybody ELSE on November 25th, how about spending the next 10 days thanking, appreciating, and becoming more aware of yourself?
I call it, "Thankstaking". Try practicing one of these each day until the 25th.
Repeat to your right side. As you slowly recover to 'vertical', how do you determine when you've reached a centered, straight-up, 'vertical' position? Say, "This is how I'm responding:" [Say what your feelings are, what you'd like to do to the other drivers, how impatient you are, etc.] Say, "I can respond differently if I choose by:" [Give some other, less negative, reactions.]
Catch yourself whenever you say "allness" words, such as all, totally, absolutely, every, none, certainly, without a doubt, never, always, etc. Do you really mean that? We tend to use a lot of these 'extreme' words in our daily conversations. In many cases, they cause us to develop distorted views of what's actually happening and can lead to unrealistic, and unrealizable, expectations. Catch yourself whenever you make an observation or state an opinion, and add the phrase, "... to me." (This should be relatively easy for those of you who like to play the Chinese fortune cookie game of reading aloud your fortunes and then adding the words, " ... in bed").
"No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature.Good and bad are but names very readily
transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution,
the only wrong what is against it."
"What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. It is the harder, because you
will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own. But the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence
of solitude."
For more from Emerson's essay "Self Reliance", http://dfwcgs.net/etc/quotes.html#rwe
You're welcome.
AND FINALLY:
Our single friends in London apparently eschew the "meat market" scene, instead preferring to meet and mingle while shopping in the grocery market. According to an article distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, Sainsbury's - a large British grocery chain - is testing a concept called "bleepers". The adventurous single shopper may participate by programming a beeper-like device with his or her personal interests, preferences, hobbies, etc. If the shopper passes another bleeper-equipped shopper, the devices "bleep".
(I am not making this "bleep" up - this is no "bleeping" joke. These bleepers are allegedly already deployed in Japan.)
But that's not the interesting part .... the interesting thing is, "if their hobbies are compatible, the bleepers start bleeping and flashing simultaneously, loudly indicating a potential partner in the offing." (I guess "offing" is a section unique to British stores, maybe where they keep the kidney pie and haggis.) A dating service owner comments: "It is tremendous to set up something that gets people together, and it certainly beats the other supermarket tactics of [cart] barging or asking about the ripeness of melons."
How positively cliché, what - ripe melons? Indeed!
Chanticleer requests you send him your best sketchy skit, worthy of "Saturday Night Live", inspired by these zany British bleepers. The only rule is:
You can't use the word, "Schwing!"
BUT YOU THOUGHT
...
"I would like to request that you include Milton Dawes' article "All in All is not All" in a future edition. I was reminded of it when I read the following excerpts in this edition of But You Thought - All teams are groups, but not all groups are teams . . . .A group of people are a number of people . . . It requires an immense amount of work and dedication . . . and so on and so on." - Gary B. in Plano [SS: You asked for it, you got it. Here's Milton's article: http://dfwcgs.net/md/md_allin.html ]
"The comments of the Dallas Morning News regarding "Obscenity on 'Hope'" reminded me of a PBS documentary I saw recently. The documentary was about the discovery of an outbreak of syphilis in a small community in Texas. Fifty cases were detected among adolescents and when they were interviewed, it was discovered that they had had sexual intercourse with numbers of people with which previously only prostitutes could vie. The adolescents were as young as twelve and were from well-to-do families whose working parents generally left them to fend for themselves. When the health care officials called a community meeting to discuss the epidemic, the parents could not believe what they were telling them their children were doing. Only when a visual aid showing the links between adolescents having sexual intercourse that looked like an unkempt ball of yarn did the magnitude of the problem hit home. An official interviewed for the program said that the parents needed to spend more time with their teenagers, that even though it seemed they were able to take care of themselves, they still needed guidance. She was disappointed that even after the presentation, parents still didn't seem to realize that the problems with their children stemmed from the lack of time they spent with them. Considering this story, it's not surprising that a mere obscenity on TV would not receive much of a response.
"Something else I found interesting was an interview the reporters did with a fourteen year old boy who had been active in the orgies and other youthful activities. A religious group attracted him for a short time and got him to give up his evil ways. One of the group's methods of attracting the wayward youngsters was to have a Rock 'n' Roll band perform in a hall where the kids could dance, etc. Preaching was intermingled with the music and the adolescents were encouraged to pray, told they were loved, etc. The fourteen year old went along with it for awhile but lost interest when God did not respond to his prayers. He had set up a series of tests that God failed and came to the conclusion that the religion was a bunch of bunk." - Cindy F. in Pennsylvania
"I look forward to receiving your newsletters. "Chanticleer* Calls" give me pause to think about deeper things than balancing checkbooks, meeting deadlines and other daily drudgeries. Per your comment: "Seeing her alongside these other women caused me once again to think to myself, "I need to update my 'map' of what 80 looks like." Being close to someone elderly makes you realize how much they have to offer us, if only we take the time to listen and learn. Some of the best advice I ever received was from my grandmother, who died two years ago at the age of 96. She thought she was grown when she was 18. When she turned 25, she realized how silly she was at 18, but how mature she was at 25. At 40 she realized how silly she was at 25, but how mature she was at 40.....punchline? At 95, she realized how immature she was at 80. Life is a continual growth experience -chose to learn from it, and adapt. - Linda C. in Plano
"I notice no one responded to the comment in the Chanticleer of October 15: "Wouldn't we all feel just a little bit more maturely intelligent if we didn't have to appease the antiquatedly silly sensitivities of those who require the use of you-know-what-I-mean-but-I-can't-actually-say-it-(wink-wink) devices like '[Expletive]'?" Or maybe somebody did and you were too amused by their "antiquatedly silly sensitivities" to take their opinion seriously. For my bit, the word used on the Chicago Hope episode and hardly noticed is a perfectly harmless word that was first used at the turn of the last century to convey the fact that your cow had diarrheaœa. Interestingly enough, before it was used to refer to dung in general (1585) it was often used to describe a person, "Thou art a schit" (Kennedie, 1508).
"But I must apply my antiquated and silly sensitivities and protest any use of "the 'C' word". From the word's very inception (1325) it's use has been meant to degrade, abuse and insult. In my current profession, "I am" (as Gertrude Stein once was) "very busy finding out what people mean by what they say," and no one, when using that word, means any good. It may sound as if I am standing atop a feminist pedestal but what word in the English language conveys the same scorn and refers to men? You can perform fellatio on another man, or have sex with your mother, and you can be referred to by your genitalia. But I must argue that not one of those has the same connotations. Throughout history this one little four letter word says to the woman (who is referred to or has her genitalia talked about as such) that a man has the power to own it, lock it, and abuse it. Her social status and marriage-ability can be defined by it. She can be diminished to nothing but the worth of it, "the trump card of young wives" (Beckett, 1956). The user of the word either means to convey his utter disdain or his one -track mind. Neither impressive, nor "maturely intelligent."
"Words, are tremendously powerful things, and whether or not it is considered antiquated or silly, in a civil society one must pay attention to the effect their use will have. I, for one, desire and expect to be appeased and I do not mind showing the same courtesy to others. I do find myself slightly amused, though, at the initial recording of the word - it seems the citizens of thirteenth century London had the pleasure of strolling along Gropecuntelane (1230 in Ekwall, Street Names of the City of London, 1954.)" - Katybeth M. in Washington, D.C. [SS: In case you're wondering, Katybeth works as a research analyst on the staff of a nationally syndicated columnist whom I'm sure you've read - she doesn't just do this for the fun of it. And just to avoid any confusion, the " 'C' word" to which she refers is not "Clinton".]
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