I’ve had the opportunity to listen to Edward Snowden a couple of times. Before hearing him, I have progressed considerably far from the view I learned in grade school along with the name of Benedict Arnold that there was and is a stark difference when comparing cowards, traitors, moles, and deserters to heroes, patriots, agents and loyalists. There is often, however, not much of a difference. Especially when the horrors of war cover with blood the motives and objectives of the warring factions and subject many to certain death when they cannot sincerely tell to whom to give their loyalties.
On the one hand, we have benefited by knowing what Mr. Snowden revealed and there is real value in the discussion it has sparked. Probably none of that would have happened without an Edward Snowden. If he had been caught and prosecuted, he would have been muzzled by our sometimes patronizing, bourgeois, elitist and suffocatingly orthodox Judiciary and prosecutorial executive.
Yet, I’m not sure I agree with him. I don’t think he has an answer nor has he come to grips with when, where and how secrecy has to be maintained. Such decisions cannot be left to the individual supernumerary, agent or soldier to determine. Nor am I comfortable with oversight outside of an adversarial system: meaning it can’t be those in charge of running our security agencies. Furthermore, if the gate keeper or overseers do not have an adverse motive to reveal wrongdoing and overstepping, or to provide a credible check and balance, the government will always devolve into excess and malfeasance.
Still, if you think like I do that individuals like Edward Snowden have broken the law and do deserve to be punished, we still act like feudal lords who would lock captured royalty in the tower under relatively tolerable conditions until a prisoner exchange or money or other bartered items was exchanged but would throw into the most horrid dungeon the peasant foot shoulders and then subject them to the worst tortures imaginable. How do we do this?
Generals, Cabinet Heads, Agency Directors, Judges, CEOs, Corporate Owners, Congressional Reps, Senators and even Presidents sometimes make similar bad decisions to that of Edward Snowden and are never punished and when they are, their sentences are fairly trivial. We reserve the worst punishments for the least among us because our royalty cannot view such conduct in a rational manner. This is because their conduct does not just cause the harm the laws they broke were fashioned to prevent but their actions threaten to unmask and reveal our royalty, our leaders own excesses and law breaking. This cannot be tolerated by the powerful. It is equal justice they fear more than simply punishing the wrongdoer. So they make examples of the Tim DeChristophers and Edward Snowdens of the world by punishing them more harshly than they would ever punish those of the same socio-economic class. They don't want justice, they want obeisance at all costs.
Loren M. Lambert, December 8, 2015 ©.
Friday, December 11, 2015
SISTERS (with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler) -- Prescreening
Sisters--very funny and clever but on some subjects that are not my cup of tea nor my side of beef, nor my bowl of soup.
There were several moments that made me laugh until I hurt, several moments that made me uncomfortable and made me hope no one I knew, knew I was there, and several moments that made me think 'how do people come up with this stuff?'
Then there was one moment that made me think that one way or another we humans have to have our close call with danger. I just took mine climbing, running rivers and lighting my hair on fire. Pretty low key, not extremely close to danger.
Loren M. Lambert, December 10, 2015 ©
There were several moments that made me laugh until I hurt, several moments that made me uncomfortable and made me hope no one I knew, knew I was there, and several moments that made me think 'how do people come up with this stuff?'
Then there was one moment that made me think that one way or another we humans have to have our close call with danger. I just took mine climbing, running rivers and lighting my hair on fire. Pretty low key, not extremely close to danger.
Loren M. Lambert, December 10, 2015 ©
Hitting Rock Bottom – I’ve Been There and I’m Going Again
Isn't saying that you have to hit rock bottom before you can turn around the same as saying the lost item you are looking for will be found in the last place you look?
How do you know when you have hit rock bottom so you know it's safe to turn around? What if you don’t get there and you turn around too early and have to go back? Or what if you're a real competitive, disciplined and diligent rock bottomer and you have to do it better than anyone else? Don’t you then have to pay attention to where others hit rock bottom and lived to tell about it? Then don’t you have to say, “Damn, that ain't nothin'. Wait until you see my rock bottom, I'm going to be the most rockiest rock-bottomer of them all."
Problem comes, darn it, when you set the world record, someone else had to go down there and take it away from you. Then you have no choice. You have to say your good-byes, write your will, stock up on bankrupting accessories, call your boss the offspring of a fornicating corpse with no mother, splash a weeks worth of a chamber pot in the face of the only person that ever loved you and dive in once again.
I hit rock bottom once. And several times before that.
I think the first time was when I was about age 4 and 2 months old. At that moment in time I realized that clothing and shoes came in different fashions as I was on my way down to the Harts, a family of 6 boys--all older than me--and all athletes. I knew my outfit (that I knew it was an outfit should say everything) was not going to go over well with the Hart brothers. This would have never occurred to me in the long previous 4 years of my long life.
My mother had dressed me. I was wearing my cute white nurses’ uniform shoes (that’s what I called them as I’d been in a hospital already and had kicked a nurse in the shin that had stuck a needle in me and could only remember her white shoes [I didn’t know at that time that you didn’t kick someone who stuck a needle in you]) and the cute little white shirt, black suspenders, cuffed light blue shorts, and cute little brown old-fashioned polo jacket with fake pockets and a little shield over the pocket over my heart.
I had then done something unspeakable to those clothes. I don’t remember what it was but I know it made my mom cry. This made me feel bad. I didn’t know why it made her cry. I know now it was because she knew the dress-me-up days were over and it was probably straight to swearing after that.
Then there were a couple of times between 5 and 7. Can't remember what set me off during those times nor why but I know it always had something to do with my parents. Then I, alone or with my older brother, would run away to my grandmothers home to live forever, or at least until after she fed us.
But rock bottom?
That was about at age eight. That’s when my Dad--due to some lengthy period of a complete lack of discipline on my part and that of my brother--finally had enough of our messy room. He took the entire contents thereof, gathered it up into a blanket and donated it to the Salt Lake County Waste Disposal Services. Those contents will someday be dug up a few million years from now by whatever intelligent creatures evolve to take our place after we all die from global warming. They will probably look like Seagulls with residual wings.
After my Dad did this, my older brother and I filled our army surplus canteens with old fashioned tap water, loaded up on a few storage items and headed out. This time we resolved to never return, ever. We both promised this several times to each other. First we passed from the Canyon Rim area through the wilderness border into the no-man's land that was Wasatch Blvd and scrambled into the beat up foothills that would, over the next 20 years, be filled with a new thing called split level houses. Then we started our climb to freedom–up into the wilderness of Snake Mountain.
We made it halfway up. It started to snow. We didn’t have gloves or hats. My brother said we should probably go back. I told him no, we hadn’t even drunk all of our water nor eaten our bottled peaches. Yes, he said, that was right but he had been carrying the peaches and they weighed a ton and that the canteens weighed a ton more and he didn’t know how the hell we had won WWII and the Korean war with such lousy canteens. So he said we had to go back. I started to cry, because we couldn’t go back, it would be too embarrassing. I told him we hadn’t even hit rock bottom.
He told me to suit myself, I could hit rock bottom if I wanted, but he was going back. He said he didn’t like all his stupid stuff anyway and that the seagulls could poop on part of it, eat the rest and regurgitate it into the Great Salt Lake.
I stood there for a long time, staring up into the mountain that was shrouded in clouds. I knew that there was some paradise being hidden under that blanket of clouds, just up over the peak. I let the snow coat my long, blond hair and drip cold down my face. Then, in humiliation, I turned back, yelling at my brother to hold up. I swore I would return and someday make it to that paradise.
That day has been the ruin of my life. I always look up and want to hit that rock bottom at the tops of the peaks, whether it’s too warm, too sunny, too cold, too dark, too early or I am too, whatever. When did you hit rock bottom? Hopefully for you it was bottom enough. For me it never will be and it will be the death of me I am sure.
Loren M. Lambert, December 10, 2015 ©
How do you know when you have hit rock bottom so you know it's safe to turn around? What if you don’t get there and you turn around too early and have to go back? Or what if you're a real competitive, disciplined and diligent rock bottomer and you have to do it better than anyone else? Don’t you then have to pay attention to where others hit rock bottom and lived to tell about it? Then don’t you have to say, “Damn, that ain't nothin'. Wait until you see my rock bottom, I'm going to be the most rockiest rock-bottomer of them all."
Problem comes, darn it, when you set the world record, someone else had to go down there and take it away from you. Then you have no choice. You have to say your good-byes, write your will, stock up on bankrupting accessories, call your boss the offspring of a fornicating corpse with no mother, splash a weeks worth of a chamber pot in the face of the only person that ever loved you and dive in once again.
I hit rock bottom once. And several times before that.
I think the first time was when I was about age 4 and 2 months old. At that moment in time I realized that clothing and shoes came in different fashions as I was on my way down to the Harts, a family of 6 boys--all older than me--and all athletes. I knew my outfit (that I knew it was an outfit should say everything) was not going to go over well with the Hart brothers. This would have never occurred to me in the long previous 4 years of my long life.
My mother had dressed me. I was wearing my cute white nurses’ uniform shoes (that’s what I called them as I’d been in a hospital already and had kicked a nurse in the shin that had stuck a needle in me and could only remember her white shoes [I didn’t know at that time that you didn’t kick someone who stuck a needle in you]) and the cute little white shirt, black suspenders, cuffed light blue shorts, and cute little brown old-fashioned polo jacket with fake pockets and a little shield over the pocket over my heart.
I had then done something unspeakable to those clothes. I don’t remember what it was but I know it made my mom cry. This made me feel bad. I didn’t know why it made her cry. I know now it was because she knew the dress-me-up days were over and it was probably straight to swearing after that.
Then there were a couple of times between 5 and 7. Can't remember what set me off during those times nor why but I know it always had something to do with my parents. Then I, alone or with my older brother, would run away to my grandmothers home to live forever, or at least until after she fed us.
But rock bottom?
That was about at age eight. That’s when my Dad--due to some lengthy period of a complete lack of discipline on my part and that of my brother--finally had enough of our messy room. He took the entire contents thereof, gathered it up into a blanket and donated it to the Salt Lake County Waste Disposal Services. Those contents will someday be dug up a few million years from now by whatever intelligent creatures evolve to take our place after we all die from global warming. They will probably look like Seagulls with residual wings.
After my Dad did this, my older brother and I filled our army surplus canteens with old fashioned tap water, loaded up on a few storage items and headed out. This time we resolved to never return, ever. We both promised this several times to each other. First we passed from the Canyon Rim area through the wilderness border into the no-man's land that was Wasatch Blvd and scrambled into the beat up foothills that would, over the next 20 years, be filled with a new thing called split level houses. Then we started our climb to freedom–up into the wilderness of Snake Mountain.
We made it halfway up. It started to snow. We didn’t have gloves or hats. My brother said we should probably go back. I told him no, we hadn’t even drunk all of our water nor eaten our bottled peaches. Yes, he said, that was right but he had been carrying the peaches and they weighed a ton and that the canteens weighed a ton more and he didn’t know how the hell we had won WWII and the Korean war with such lousy canteens. So he said we had to go back. I started to cry, because we couldn’t go back, it would be too embarrassing. I told him we hadn’t even hit rock bottom.
He told me to suit myself, I could hit rock bottom if I wanted, but he was going back. He said he didn’t like all his stupid stuff anyway and that the seagulls could poop on part of it, eat the rest and regurgitate it into the Great Salt Lake.
I stood there for a long time, staring up into the mountain that was shrouded in clouds. I knew that there was some paradise being hidden under that blanket of clouds, just up over the peak. I let the snow coat my long, blond hair and drip cold down my face. Then, in humiliation, I turned back, yelling at my brother to hold up. I swore I would return and someday make it to that paradise.
That day has been the ruin of my life. I always look up and want to hit that rock bottom at the tops of the peaks, whether it’s too warm, too sunny, too cold, too dark, too early or I am too, whatever. When did you hit rock bottom? Hopefully for you it was bottom enough. For me it never will be and it will be the death of me I am sure.
Loren M. Lambert, December 10, 2015 ©
Monday, December 7, 2015
The Wizard of Fox – A Screenplay That Will Take America Home & Help Make Us Safe Against Terrorism
WIZARD MARCO RUBIO
Good people of Fox. And all you non-tea partiers
and dear miss beautiful and lovely America, I am your Wizard.
I’m sorry about all the murder and mayhem here.
But in that big fat balloon, [he points at Donald Trump]
yes, the one and only Donald Trump,
my dear, America, and I, as the Vice President,
will return to the land of E Pluribus Unum,
where there will be no more crime, terrorism, and murder!
I am about to embark upon a hazardous
journey to get there into the outer stratosphere where I often go
to converse and otherwise hob-nob with my brother Republican wizards.
I hereby decree that until that time -- if any --
that I return, the Scarecrow Jeb Bush, by virtue of
his highly superior brains, shall rule in
my stead...assisted by the Tin Man Mike Huckabee
by virtue of his magnificent heart...and the
Lion Ben Carson-- by virtue of his courage! Obey them
as you would me! And - ah - well, that's all.
Woman
Mr. Wizard man Rubio, you'd better hurry,
the big balloon with peach fuzz hair that glows
and blurs in digital mediums is leaving.
Wizard Marco Rubio and America, along with her little dog, Constitution, tucked in a basket in her hands, jump into Mr. Trump’s ample and fat arms. Constitution sniffs Mr. Trump, growls and bites him and the Wizard, then jumps from America’s basket.
AMERICA
Oh, come back here! Constitution! Eghuu,
and you do stink Mr. Trump.
Donald Trump
You're just not smelling hard enough. Take this...
Trump clasps America harder, squeezing her mammary glands. Screaming, she kicks him where it counts and wriggles free chasing after Constitution.
TIN MAN MIKE HACKABEE
Stop Constitution! Stop!
WIZARD MARCO RUBIO
This is a highly irregular procedure! This
is absolutely unprecedented! Goodbye
America and your little nasty dog Constitution.
AMERICA
Oh! Come back! Don't go without me!
Please come back!
WIZARD MARCO RUBIO
I can't come back! Especially not with your nasty little dog,
Constitution. The Balloon and I don't know how it works!
AMERICA
Oh --
Tin Man Huckabee, Scarecrow Ted Cruz and Lion Ben Carson grope about America -- she speaks.
AMERICA
Give me some space. Please. Oh, now I'll never get home!
LION BEN CARSON
Stay with us, then, AMERICA. We all love
you. We don't want you to go. We’ll keep you save from the other
people here.
AMERICA
Oh, that's very kind of you -- but this
could never be like Kansas, could it? Auntie Em must
have stopped wondering what happened to me
by now. Oh, Scarecrow Cruz, what am I going to
do?
SCARECROW TED CRUZ
Look -- here's someone who can help you!
A big blob is wafting into view and growing bigger until stopping by them all and bursting in a gust of green snot. Within in it, Roger Ailes the Fox TV Good Fairy, appears.
AMERICA
Oh, will you help me? Can you help me?
ROGER
You don't need to be helped any longer.
You've always had the power to go back to
Kansas.
Then why didn't you tell her before?
ROGER
Because she wouldn't have believed me. She
had to learn it for herself.
TIN MAN HUCABEE
What have you learned, AMERICA?
AMERICA
To be good and true. To hold tight to my values
of freedom, liberty and equal justice.
And not to look any further than my own
heart. Because if its there, I
never really lost it to begin with! Is
that right?
ROGER
Hell no, what are you thinking, stupid ___________!
It’s “radical Islamist terrorism!” Just say it and get that boy
you call a President to follow along with you.
SCARECROW TED CRUZ
But that's so easy! I already thought
of it for you and said it many times.
TIN MAN HUCKABEE
Yeah, I felt it in my heart. ROGER
No you all didn’t. I did and I had to pound it into
your tiny little head spaces until you got on board.
I made all of you, including the Wizard of Fox,
and that Fat Trump Balloon he left with.
Now, America, some magic words will take you
home in two seconds!
AMERICA
Oh.... and the Constitution too?
ROGER
No. I’ll take care of it. Give it here. Are you ready?
America hands Constitution to Roger who feeds it a Valium and slips a shock collar over its head.
AMERICA
Oh, dear yes -- it's too wonderful to be true!
ROGER
Yes, it is, but shut up and let’s get going.
AMERICA
Oh, goodbye. I love you all, you too, Constitution.
Roger waves Constitution’s paw at America.
ROGER
So close your eyes, and tap your seas together three times.
And say -- "Radical Islamist Terrorism,” three times.
AMERICA
Radical Islamist Terrorism. Tap. Radical Islamist Terrorism. Tap.
Radical Islamist Terrorism. Tap.
The world turns rapidly into a blur. The Witch laughs. Raging storms devastate E Pluribus Unum. Prisons fly by. Torture chambers fly by. The mayhem of war floods the screen. America lands on a bed of newspapers with the headline, America Utters the Words, Radical Islamic Terrorism, in a dilapidated old one room house in a desolate, dust bowl world, surrounded by war and death.
AUNT EM
AMERICA - AMERICA! It's me -- Aunt Em.
Wake up, honey.
AMERICA
-- Radical Islamist Terrorism. Radical Islamist Terrorism,
AUNT EM
AMERICA. AMERICA, dear. It's Aunt Em,
darling.
AMERICA
Oh, Auntie Em -- it's you! AUNT EM
Yes, darling. Why are you here with us in the middle east?
I’m working as a nurse for the wounded soldiers and refugees.
You’ve got quite a bump on your head. And where’s
Constitution?
AMERICA
I left him in the Fairy of Fox’s news’s able hands.
Isn’t this Kansas?
AUNT EM
No.
AMERICA
Aren’t all the terrorists gone? I said the magic words,
AUNT EM
No, no. After tapping your seas together, giving lip service by
thinking magic words are doing something other than declaring war
against all Muslims, we’re in a bit of trouble. You see,
words don’t kill people nor solve problems.
People do both. You just have to decide which you
want to do. And you picked killing everyone.
AMERICA
Oh no. This is bad. AUNT EM
There, there, lie quiet now. You just
had some bad advice and you’re stuck like
we are in the nightmare of our own fears.
Also it so happens, leaving the Constitution to be cared for
by televangelist the Fairy of Fox, turning the country
over to the Wizard of Fox and his Balloon and
that treating everyone like enemies,
even when they have the same enemies and problems
that we do actually makes them our enemies.
Don’t you realize America that you never left home at all?
Fox was part of E Pluribus Unum.
You just shouldn’t have hung out with
Scarecrows, Tin Men and Lions. They aren’t even human.
And listening to Wizards and Hot Air Balloons!!
You think you’d lost your mind.
AMERICA
Oh, no, what do I do now, Auntie Em? AUNT EM
Well that’s going to be a little hard since
we are now at war with everyone, and we have no
Constitution. We’re putting people in concentration camps,
torturing others and our own people, putting them
in prison and the Fairy of Fox News runs everything with
his minions the Wizard, Balloon, Tin Man, Scarecrow and the Lion.
But try this: Thinking for yourself,
believing what you say you do, that all
people deserve respect, love and civil rights.
And start leading instead of reacting out of
proportion when a handful of crazy nuts
try to say that everyone is just like them
either here or on the northern continent of
the E Pluribus Unum. Gets us out of these
wars so we can all go home. And say these magic words
three times. “There are no magic words,
or even beans.”
AMERICA
Okay, thanks Auntie Em. Who knew. You’re
the heart of American! “There are no magic words,
or even beans. There are no magic words,
or even beans. There are no magic words,
or even beans.”
America then woke up and realized that times of crisis test us to see if we give in to fear and our worst natures or allow our principles to guide us.
- Loren M. Lambert © December 7, 2015.
Good people of Fox. And all you non-tea partiers
and dear miss beautiful and lovely America, I am your Wizard.
I’m sorry about all the murder and mayhem here.
But in that big fat balloon, [he points at Donald Trump]
yes, the one and only Donald Trump,
my dear, America, and I, as the Vice President,
will return to the land of E Pluribus Unum,
where there will be no more crime, terrorism, and murder!
I am about to embark upon a hazardous
journey to get there into the outer stratosphere where I often go
to converse and otherwise hob-nob with my brother Republican wizards.
I hereby decree that until that time -- if any --
that I return, the Scarecrow Jeb Bush, by virtue of
his highly superior brains, shall rule in
my stead...assisted by the Tin Man Mike Huckabee
by virtue of his magnificent heart...and the
Lion Ben Carson-- by virtue of his courage! Obey them
as you would me! And - ah - well, that's all.
Woman
Mr. Wizard man Rubio, you'd better hurry,
the big balloon with peach fuzz hair that glows
and blurs in digital mediums is leaving.
Wizard Marco Rubio and America, along with her little dog, Constitution, tucked in a basket in her hands, jump into Mr. Trump’s ample and fat arms. Constitution sniffs Mr. Trump, growls and bites him and the Wizard, then jumps from America’s basket.
AMERICA
Oh, come back here! Constitution! Eghuu,
and you do stink Mr. Trump.
Donald Trump
You're just not smelling hard enough. Take this...
Trump clasps America harder, squeezing her mammary glands. Screaming, she kicks him where it counts and wriggles free chasing after Constitution.
TIN MAN MIKE HACKABEE
Stop Constitution! Stop!
WIZARD MARCO RUBIO
This is a highly irregular procedure! This
is absolutely unprecedented! Goodbye
America and your little nasty dog Constitution.
AMERICA
Oh! Come back! Don't go without me!
Please come back!
WIZARD MARCO RUBIO
I can't come back! Especially not with your nasty little dog,
Constitution. The Balloon and I don't know how it works!
AMERICA
Oh --
Tin Man Huckabee, Scarecrow Ted Cruz and Lion Ben Carson grope about America -- she speaks.
AMERICA
Give me some space. Please. Oh, now I'll never get home!
LION BEN CARSON
Stay with us, then, AMERICA. We all love
you. We don't want you to go. We’ll keep you save from the other
people here.
AMERICA
Oh, that's very kind of you -- but this
could never be like Kansas, could it? Auntie Em must
have stopped wondering what happened to me
by now. Oh, Scarecrow Cruz, what am I going to
do?
SCARECROW TED CRUZ
Look -- here's someone who can help you!
A big blob is wafting into view and growing bigger until stopping by them all and bursting in a gust of green snot. Within in it, Roger Ailes the Fox TV Good Fairy, appears.
AMERICA
Oh, will you help me? Can you help me?
ROGER
You don't need to be helped any longer.
You've always had the power to go back to
Kansas.
Then why didn't you tell her before?
ROGER
Because she wouldn't have believed me. She
had to learn it for herself.
TIN MAN HUCABEE
What have you learned, AMERICA?
AMERICA
To be good and true. To hold tight to my values
of freedom, liberty and equal justice.
And not to look any further than my own
heart. Because if its there, I
never really lost it to begin with! Is
that right?
ROGER
Hell no, what are you thinking, stupid ___________!
It’s “radical Islamist terrorism!” Just say it and get that boy
you call a President to follow along with you.
SCARECROW TED CRUZ
But that's so easy! I already thought
of it for you and said it many times.
TIN MAN HUCKABEE
Yeah, I felt it in my heart. ROGER
No you all didn’t. I did and I had to pound it into
your tiny little head spaces until you got on board.
I made all of you, including the Wizard of Fox,
and that Fat Trump Balloon he left with.
Now, America, some magic words will take you
home in two seconds!
AMERICA
Oh.... and the Constitution too?
ROGER
No. I’ll take care of it. Give it here. Are you ready?
America hands Constitution to Roger who feeds it a Valium and slips a shock collar over its head.
AMERICA
Oh, dear yes -- it's too wonderful to be true!
ROGER
Yes, it is, but shut up and let’s get going.
AMERICA
Oh, goodbye. I love you all, you too, Constitution.
Roger waves Constitution’s paw at America.
ROGER
So close your eyes, and tap your seas together three times.
And say -- "Radical Islamist Terrorism,” three times.
AMERICA
Radical Islamist Terrorism. Tap. Radical Islamist Terrorism. Tap.
Radical Islamist Terrorism. Tap.
The world turns rapidly into a blur. The Witch laughs. Raging storms devastate E Pluribus Unum. Prisons fly by. Torture chambers fly by. The mayhem of war floods the screen. America lands on a bed of newspapers with the headline, America Utters the Words, Radical Islamic Terrorism, in a dilapidated old one room house in a desolate, dust bowl world, surrounded by war and death.
AUNT EM
AMERICA - AMERICA! It's me -- Aunt Em.
Wake up, honey.
AMERICA
-- Radical Islamist Terrorism. Radical Islamist Terrorism,
AUNT EM
AMERICA. AMERICA, dear. It's Aunt Em,
darling.
AMERICA
Oh, Auntie Em -- it's you! AUNT EM
Yes, darling. Why are you here with us in the middle east?
I’m working as a nurse for the wounded soldiers and refugees.
You’ve got quite a bump on your head. And where’s
Constitution?
AMERICA
I left him in the Fairy of Fox’s news’s able hands.
Isn’t this Kansas?
AUNT EM
No.
AMERICA
Aren’t all the terrorists gone? I said the magic words,
AUNT EM
No, no. After tapping your seas together, giving lip service by
thinking magic words are doing something other than declaring war
against all Muslims, we’re in a bit of trouble. You see,
words don’t kill people nor solve problems.
People do both. You just have to decide which you
want to do. And you picked killing everyone.
AMERICA
Oh no. This is bad. AUNT EM
There, there, lie quiet now. You just
had some bad advice and you’re stuck like
we are in the nightmare of our own fears.
Also it so happens, leaving the Constitution to be cared for
by televangelist the Fairy of Fox, turning the country
over to the Wizard of Fox and his Balloon and
that treating everyone like enemies,
even when they have the same enemies and problems
that we do actually makes them our enemies.
Don’t you realize America that you never left home at all?
Fox was part of E Pluribus Unum.
You just shouldn’t have hung out with
Scarecrows, Tin Men and Lions. They aren’t even human.
And listening to Wizards and Hot Air Balloons!!
You think you’d lost your mind.
AMERICA
Oh, no, what do I do now, Auntie Em? AUNT EM
Well that’s going to be a little hard since
we are now at war with everyone, and we have no
Constitution. We’re putting people in concentration camps,
torturing others and our own people, putting them
in prison and the Fairy of Fox News runs everything with
his minions the Wizard, Balloon, Tin Man, Scarecrow and the Lion.
But try this: Thinking for yourself,
believing what you say you do, that all
people deserve respect, love and civil rights.
And start leading instead of reacting out of
proportion when a handful of crazy nuts
try to say that everyone is just like them
either here or on the northern continent of
the E Pluribus Unum. Gets us out of these
wars so we can all go home. And say these magic words
three times. “There are no magic words,
or even beans.”
AMERICA
Okay, thanks Auntie Em. Who knew. You’re
the heart of American! “There are no magic words,
or even beans. There are no magic words,
or even beans. There are no magic words,
or even beans.”
America then woke up and realized that times of crisis test us to see if we give in to fear and our worst natures or allow our principles to guide us.
- Loren M. Lambert © December 7, 2015.
Wednesday, December 2, 2015
When You Think You Don't Need It You Really Do -- Public Education
Author David McCullough in his book The Wright Brothers
explains that Wilbur and Orville Wright, who were amazingly ambitious,
inventive and adept craftsmen--along with achieving flight within a
maneuverable heavier-than-air aircraft, had "no college education, no
formal technical training, no experience working with anyone other than
themselves, no friends in high places, no financial backers, nor
government subsidies and little money of their own. [And who had to have
known there was] ... the entirely real possibility that at some point,
like [others before them], they could be killed."
Many parents and other mentors of children who are aware of such icons as the Wright Brothers, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and numerous others in numerous professions and careers, who had no formal education or college degree, use them as examples of why their kids and disciples don't need formal education or higher education degrees. Others, such as some conservatives, common Philistines and Troglodytes use these giants as an excuse to neglect or advocate the destruction of public education or to discourage others from accessing it. However, invariably what they fail to understand is rarely do people have the superior intellect, work ethic or other advantages that these icons had.
In support of this reality, David McCullough goes on to chronicle, "Years later a friend to Orville said that he and his brother would always stand as an example for how far Americans with no special advantages could advance in the world. "But it isn't true," Orville responded emphatically, "to say we had nor special advantages . . . the greatest thing in our favor was growing up in a family where there was always much encouragement to intellectual curiosity."
That's what all humble, honest, perceptive and wise leaders of leaders understand. There is no such thing as the self-made man or woman. They get there with many great advantages, with a lot of hard work and upon the backs and wings of those who love them and those they love. And what all the rest of us of average intellect and physical ability should understand is that we, our children, and our charges, whether formally or informally, need all of the education and support that we can access.
The linchpin to all of this is the foundation of adequately funded, professionally staffed, public education. That way we all have the opportunity to take flight and show the way in our own places in the world.
-Loren M. Lambert, December 1, 2015 ©.
Many parents and other mentors of children who are aware of such icons as the Wright Brothers, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and numerous others in numerous professions and careers, who had no formal education or college degree, use them as examples of why their kids and disciples don't need formal education or higher education degrees. Others, such as some conservatives, common Philistines and Troglodytes use these giants as an excuse to neglect or advocate the destruction of public education or to discourage others from accessing it. However, invariably what they fail to understand is rarely do people have the superior intellect, work ethic or other advantages that these icons had.
In support of this reality, David McCullough goes on to chronicle, "Years later a friend to Orville said that he and his brother would always stand as an example for how far Americans with no special advantages could advance in the world. "But it isn't true," Orville responded emphatically, "to say we had nor special advantages . . . the greatest thing in our favor was growing up in a family where there was always much encouragement to intellectual curiosity."
That's what all humble, honest, perceptive and wise leaders of leaders understand. There is no such thing as the self-made man or woman. They get there with many great advantages, with a lot of hard work and upon the backs and wings of those who love them and those they love. And what all the rest of us of average intellect and physical ability should understand is that we, our children, and our charges, whether formally or informally, need all of the education and support that we can access.
The linchpin to all of this is the foundation of adequately funded, professionally staffed, public education. That way we all have the opportunity to take flight and show the way in our own places in the world.
-Loren M. Lambert, December 1, 2015 ©.
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Legend: Story About London Gangsters Ronnie and Reggie Kray
I attended a pre-screening of Legend. It had great production value. Tom Hardy, one of my favorite actors, portrayed the Krays with mastery. The cinematography was superb.
But, I have to say, while I can recommend some R-rated movies because they have redeeming value, this one does not. If you're on the fence about the ratings, this one is not for you. Yet, if you like gangster movies that honestly show gangsters, you'll like this. I did not.
It was too violent for my taste and I spent some of my time covering my eyes and saying "lalalalalala." Thank goodness it was predictable. You knew when the violence was going to break out because they always telegraphed it--so I missed all that action. And the only character I kind of liked was Reggie's girlfriend and then wife but it was hard to do so because of her blatant, eyes-open stupidity.
Your heart is bigger and you don't become more likable because you are able to love a bigger scoundrel.
You may respond, "but don't you know its all fake?" Yes, but it's not. Good acting and good story telling allow you to suspend belief and live that reality. That is why movies, like no other medium, are so powerful. This reality is accentuated when you are someone like me who tends to feel what you are seeing. I don't like the reality of evil and criminality and I don't like how it makes me feel, especially when it is done with an emphasis thereon instead of it being a momentary glimpse to highlight good. In the movie it is discussed how sometimes the very wealthy like hanging out with the very criminal because they are both greedy and they both have access to lots of money that wasn't honestly earned. There is some truth to that, but there is a difference between the two. Maybe it is subtle, but it is nonetheless there and it makes all the difference in the world. It is when people lose sight of that fact and it allows them to rationalize and drift over to cross that line into criminality.
Loren M. Lambert © November 25, 2015.
But, I have to say, while I can recommend some R-rated movies because they have redeeming value, this one does not. If you're on the fence about the ratings, this one is not for you. Yet, if you like gangster movies that honestly show gangsters, you'll like this. I did not.
It was too violent for my taste and I spent some of my time covering my eyes and saying "lalalalalala." Thank goodness it was predictable. You knew when the violence was going to break out because they always telegraphed it--so I missed all that action. And the only character I kind of liked was Reggie's girlfriend and then wife but it was hard to do so because of her blatant, eyes-open stupidity.
Your heart is bigger and you don't become more likable because you are able to love a bigger scoundrel.
You may respond, "but don't you know its all fake?" Yes, but it's not. Good acting and good story telling allow you to suspend belief and live that reality. That is why movies, like no other medium, are so powerful. This reality is accentuated when you are someone like me who tends to feel what you are seeing. I don't like the reality of evil and criminality and I don't like how it makes me feel, especially when it is done with an emphasis thereon instead of it being a momentary glimpse to highlight good. In the movie it is discussed how sometimes the very wealthy like hanging out with the very criminal because they are both greedy and they both have access to lots of money that wasn't honestly earned. There is some truth to that, but there is a difference between the two. Maybe it is subtle, but it is nonetheless there and it makes all the difference in the world. It is when people lose sight of that fact and it allows them to rationalize and drift over to cross that line into criminality.
Loren M. Lambert © November 25, 2015.
When Corporations Are Most Likely To Subvert the Democratic Process
At the very least, can't we all agree upon a constitutional amendment that would bar corporations, business entities, banks or persons from donating to any political party or pac that at any time invest more of their capital than 20%; buy more than 20 % of their goods, materials, or products from a foreign company; or that are owed more than 20% of all of their accounts receivable at any time to a foreign country or foreign corporation or business entity?
Corporations that do this are more likely than not to involve us in unwise wars or shenanigans when things go badly for them abroad. How do they do this? It's relatively easy--they purchase a few Senators and Congressional Reps.
Loren M. Lambert © November 25, 2015
Corporations that do this are more likely than not to involve us in unwise wars or shenanigans when things go badly for them abroad. How do they do this? It's relatively easy--they purchase a few Senators and Congressional Reps.
Loren M. Lambert © November 25, 2015
HAPPY THANKSGIVING
May we all have such gratitude that we will seek, despite our fear, despite the risks, despite the failings of our own hearts, to realize that our gratitude is meaningless unless we are willing to provide a reason for even those we fashion as our enemies to give thanks and to have gratitude that even in our fear, we lived up to the promise of our better natures.
Loren M. Lambert © November 25, 2015.
Loren M. Lambert © November 25, 2015.
Conservatives Don’t Care About U.S. Military Casualties?
Conservatives: since you call for a war abroad to spare us from death domestically, how many U.S. soldiers’ lives equal one U.S. citizen’s life?
Not a fair question, right? I say it is and how about these:
Can any conservative or their political Republican representatives guarantee that if the U.S. took a more expansive role in Syria to combat Isis and Bashar al-Assad, that we would be able to bring stability in Syria?
Can any conservative or their political republican representatives guarantee that if the U.S. took a more expansive role in the middle east and expanded our drone strike program that we would not kill more innocent non-combatants than we would kill enemies?
Can any conservative or their political republican representatives guarantee that if the U.S. took a more expansive role in Syria to combat Isis, and expanded our drone program that we would not create more enemies than we would kill Isis members and other terrorists?
Can any conservative or their political republican representatives guarantee that if the U.S. took a more expansive role in Syria to combat Isis, that we would not end up in a war with Russia?
Can anyone guarantee that if the U.S. took a more expansive role against Isis, that we would not cause the entire region to devolve into instability and war?
Can anyone guarantee that if the U.S. armed other forces in the middle east and in so doing installed its preferred government in Syria that they would not become as unsavory a choice as Bashar al-Assad and not use those same weapons against the U.S. or our allies?
Can anyone guarantee that if Turkey goes to war against Russia and thereby called upon NATO, as is its right, to defend it against Russia, that this would not cause a third world war?
Can anyone guarantee that if we do not aid Syrian refugees to relocate to the U.S. that many of them will needlessly die?
Can any conservative or their political republican representatives guarantee that they know how to bring peace in the middle east, they know who our allies are in Syria, and they know some risk free solution to all foreign policy issue facing the U.S.?
The answer to all of these questions, of course, is no. No option in the middle east is risk free, yet many Americans can’t come to grips with the irony that while they beat the war drums and clamor for the U.S. to take a greater military role in Syria, the middle east and against Isis, they can’t tell you what our goals should be nor how many U.S. Soldiers’ lives it would take to reach those goals or to destroy Isis. They can’t tell you how many lives could be saved in the U.S. by investing the money such a war would cost in better health care, safer infrastructure and a cleaner environment. They can’t guarantee that such a war would not cause a second recession or depression since 2009, nor that it would not again balloon deficits and increase the national dept.
And you know what, liberals, progressives and their allies and political figureheads cannot guarantee that if this country admits Syrian refugees that there will never be among them any criminals nor individuals that would seek to do the U.S. harm. But this is what liberals, progressives and their allies and political figureheads can guarantee, that if we do extend a hand of welcome to those desiring to come here, proportionate to the extent our NATO allies do, that there will be many among them that bring invaluable gifts of ingenuity, enterprise, resilience and muscle that will make this country better. Among them will also be many who well bring the U.S. intel that will allow us to better understand the middle east, including our enemies, and thereby allow the U.S. to have greater insight and to advance the march toward peace for all in that region. This has been the case with all people that have come here. We can further guarantee that if we do not, that many will be killed, many will unnecessarily suffer, and many will become radicalized and conscripted into terrorist groups while languishing in refugee camps. So why do so many conservatives want our military to have a greater role in Syria and the middle east? Because while they care about our security here at home and claim to be patriotic, they seem not to care about how many U.S. Soldiers will die engaged in such a greater military role. Why don’t they care? It is likely that many of them see the U.S. military as a tool to be used, as an abstract thing, like their toaster, lawn mower or car. That’s what it's for right? To exercise our military might abroad? They don’t understand it means the expenditure of U.S. lives, probably more than we ever have to worry about regarding any radicals that may be among the refugees. They don’t understand this because neither they nor their children are going to be sent into Syria to fight Russia, Syria and Isis.
Moreover, truth be told, until both Republicans and Democrats get serious about border control, any feared Syrian terrorists can get here with or without the U.S. admitting Syrian refugees. In that case, we will gain more by charitably picking our Syrian neighbors, showing them our goodness and thereby making them our allies–as we have–eventually–with all who have come here. I favor such a path, not because it is risk free, but because it is the right thing to do. And yes, just like the abundance of guns in our country subject us to greater gun violence, I accept the risk to my family and me of admitting Syrian refugees because I think the good that comes from it is greater than any risk.
Loren M. Lambert, November 27, 2015 ©.
Not a fair question, right? I say it is and how about these:
Can any conservative or their political Republican representatives guarantee that if the U.S. took a more expansive role in Syria to combat Isis and Bashar al-Assad, that we would be able to bring stability in Syria?
Can any conservative or their political republican representatives guarantee that if the U.S. took a more expansive role in the middle east and expanded our drone strike program that we would not kill more innocent non-combatants than we would kill enemies?
Can any conservative or their political republican representatives guarantee that if the U.S. took a more expansive role in Syria to combat Isis, and expanded our drone program that we would not create more enemies than we would kill Isis members and other terrorists?
Can any conservative or their political republican representatives guarantee that if the U.S. took a more expansive role in Syria to combat Isis, that we would not end up in a war with Russia?
Can anyone guarantee that if the U.S. took a more expansive role against Isis, that we would not cause the entire region to devolve into instability and war?
Can anyone guarantee that if the U.S. armed other forces in the middle east and in so doing installed its preferred government in Syria that they would not become as unsavory a choice as Bashar al-Assad and not use those same weapons against the U.S. or our allies?
Can anyone guarantee that if Turkey goes to war against Russia and thereby called upon NATO, as is its right, to defend it against Russia, that this would not cause a third world war?
Can anyone guarantee that if we do not aid Syrian refugees to relocate to the U.S. that many of them will needlessly die?
Can any conservative or their political republican representatives guarantee that they know how to bring peace in the middle east, they know who our allies are in Syria, and they know some risk free solution to all foreign policy issue facing the U.S.?
The answer to all of these questions, of course, is no. No option in the middle east is risk free, yet many Americans can’t come to grips with the irony that while they beat the war drums and clamor for the U.S. to take a greater military role in Syria, the middle east and against Isis, they can’t tell you what our goals should be nor how many U.S. Soldiers’ lives it would take to reach those goals or to destroy Isis. They can’t tell you how many lives could be saved in the U.S. by investing the money such a war would cost in better health care, safer infrastructure and a cleaner environment. They can’t guarantee that such a war would not cause a second recession or depression since 2009, nor that it would not again balloon deficits and increase the national dept.
And you know what, liberals, progressives and their allies and political figureheads cannot guarantee that if this country admits Syrian refugees that there will never be among them any criminals nor individuals that would seek to do the U.S. harm. But this is what liberals, progressives and their allies and political figureheads can guarantee, that if we do extend a hand of welcome to those desiring to come here, proportionate to the extent our NATO allies do, that there will be many among them that bring invaluable gifts of ingenuity, enterprise, resilience and muscle that will make this country better. Among them will also be many who well bring the U.S. intel that will allow us to better understand the middle east, including our enemies, and thereby allow the U.S. to have greater insight and to advance the march toward peace for all in that region. This has been the case with all people that have come here. We can further guarantee that if we do not, that many will be killed, many will unnecessarily suffer, and many will become radicalized and conscripted into terrorist groups while languishing in refugee camps. So why do so many conservatives want our military to have a greater role in Syria and the middle east? Because while they care about our security here at home and claim to be patriotic, they seem not to care about how many U.S. Soldiers will die engaged in such a greater military role. Why don’t they care? It is likely that many of them see the U.S. military as a tool to be used, as an abstract thing, like their toaster, lawn mower or car. That’s what it's for right? To exercise our military might abroad? They don’t understand it means the expenditure of U.S. lives, probably more than we ever have to worry about regarding any radicals that may be among the refugees. They don’t understand this because neither they nor their children are going to be sent into Syria to fight Russia, Syria and Isis.
Moreover, truth be told, until both Republicans and Democrats get serious about border control, any feared Syrian terrorists can get here with or without the U.S. admitting Syrian refugees. In that case, we will gain more by charitably picking our Syrian neighbors, showing them our goodness and thereby making them our allies–as we have–eventually–with all who have come here. I favor such a path, not because it is risk free, but because it is the right thing to do. And yes, just like the abundance of guns in our country subject us to greater gun violence, I accept the risk to my family and me of admitting Syrian refugees because I think the good that comes from it is greater than any risk.
Loren M. Lambert, November 27, 2015 ©.
Paradoxical Sleep -- Usually
While dolphins are the true multi-taskers, one half of their brain sleeps while the other half keeps the rest of them from drowning or becoming propeller dice, humans are completely immobile, vulnerable predator bait for around 8 hours a day which forced us to form strong bonds with other humans to share the watch and to make strong homes with security systems to protect us.
But what do humans have that's kind of neat? Paradoxical sleep. It allows us to dream and allows our brains to go through all the same electrical messaging they would do if our dreams were real except for actually causing our bodies to move--most of the time.
When it doesn't, NFL footballs stars have crushed their dressers, sleep walkers have traveled through the house unconsciously and at times even ventured out into the night with sometimes scary and dangerous results, and I sit up in bed and yelp as a basketball is unexpectedly thrown at me by an imagined friend. I catch it and awake with nothing but air from the middle of the net in my hands. If only I had had the same reflexes as a teen when sports weren't everything, they were the only thing.
© Loren M. Lambert, November 28, 2015
But what do humans have that's kind of neat? Paradoxical sleep. It allows us to dream and allows our brains to go through all the same electrical messaging they would do if our dreams were real except for actually causing our bodies to move--most of the time.
When it doesn't, NFL footballs stars have crushed their dressers, sleep walkers have traveled through the house unconsciously and at times even ventured out into the night with sometimes scary and dangerous results, and I sit up in bed and yelp as a basketball is unexpectedly thrown at me by an imagined friend. I catch it and awake with nothing but air from the middle of the net in my hands. If only I had had the same reflexes as a teen when sports weren't everything, they were the only thing.
© Loren M. Lambert, November 28, 2015
The Invention of the Wheel–The Cause of Teen Pregnancy and The Beginning of the End
Author David MCcullough in his book, The Wright Brothers, chronicles that in the 1890s, “Bicycles were proclaimed morally hazardous. ..Until now children and youth were unable to stray very far from home on foot. Now, one magazine warned, fifteen minutes could put them miles away. Because of bicycles, it was said, young people were not spending the time they should [reading] and ... tours on bicycles were ‘not infrequently accompanied by seductions.’”
And of course, before bicycles, the wheel had to be invented. Therefore the invention of the wheel has to be the root cause of most of our current problems. So when anyone asks you to explain any of your shortcomings–blame it on the invention of the wheel.
Loren M. Lambert, © November 28, 2015
And of course, before bicycles, the wheel had to be invented. Therefore the invention of the wheel has to be the root cause of most of our current problems. So when anyone asks you to explain any of your shortcomings–blame it on the invention of the wheel.
Loren M. Lambert, © November 28, 2015
Monday, November 23, 2015
The Plague of Passion - Under What Circumstances Can Partners Take You to Paradise or Put You in Prison? Or–The Tale of The Often Necessary And Just As Often Frivolous Co-habitant Protective Order
How are the following all the same? How do you distinguish one from the other?
The following is an important community service announcement that applies to all persons who seek or desire sexual fulfillment, romance, intimacy, companionship, econo-domestic partnership or mutual servitude.
This message is especially important for those souls who find themselves in the artistic community and seek, not necessarily tranquility and predictability, but rambunctious passion that sweeps them off of their feet. The trouble with rambunctious passion is that it can run to you, sweep you off your feet, enfold you in an unrelenting whirlpool that either drowns you or causes you to struggle and fight to get out. Upon escaping you are then either deflated and disconsolate, or, thanking God, the fates and sheer dumb luck that you survived. Then sometimes a third course or option is that you are left, just as quickly and surprisingly as you were embraced, with a pain, a desolation, a longing and an insatiable hunger. You find you cannot be without that other one which then leads you to your ruin or your eventual bliss if you win the fight and gain the favor of your love.
I have found that among actors, artists, film makers, dancers, directors, choreographers, photographers and clowns that they don’t just want to be in a relationship, they want to be all tangled up in it as the center of attention in the maelstrom of life. And herein lies the problem for such souls: the truth is, sometimes there is not much of a difference between love and manipulation, passion and stalking, devotion and criminal harassment, obsession and adoration, and ball busting and nurturing.
Often the difference between them is the difference in timing, the context, the intensity of your particular excesses, addictions or quirks, and the willingness of your partner to appreciate or tolerate your excesses, addictions or quirks. At times those excesses, addictions or quirks can, and sometimes should, get you into serious trouble with the law.
Here are some helpful guidelines to save you a lot of grief and money, and steer you clear of the law.
1. Physical violence either direct or indirect is never okay and should not be justified or excused. This includes threatening to commit harm against anyone or their property.
Granted, everyone has a right to defend themselves even against a beloved or not so beloved partner. But, guys (mostly guys) even when you rightfully defend yourself or your property against a woman, for better or worse, the cop, investigator, prosecutor, judge and God will, 99% of the time, regardless of what you say, blame you for any bruises or marks that end up on your partner due to your self defense or defense of your property.
I’ve known this to be true, even when I’ve been involved in cases where the woman has self inflicted injuries. I guarantee you, men, you are better off running from the woman that is attacking you or about to destroy all of your worldly possessions than trying to defend yourself or your property.
Only engage in self defense when absolutely necessary to avoid bodily harm or save your life. If that is not necessary and you can’t run, and your woman is not carrying a weapon that could inflict serious harm or death, duck and cover, or do what you’re supposed to do when a grizzly bear attacks you: curl into the fetal position. This may be against every instinct in your body but although I’m sure I’ll get many angry women responding to this post and saying that I’m incorrect, most angry women attacking you are like that same grizzly bear, they will only rip you to shreds if you remain standing in their path and confront them. Why?
Because a few women are very smart and devious. They don’t attack to necessarily win the fight with you, they attack because they are so angry and distraught they want you to realize it, and change. Then at times, there are an even fewer number who don’t care if they sustain some little damage in the process. In a twisted sort of way, these very few in number, want you to oblige them and give them some evidence to blame on you or they want to be a martyr. Don’t be participate in that.
Now, in order to not get too many hate responses, again this only applies to a very limited number of women. I do not want to diminish the problem with domestic abuse and males that actually are the aggressors and do subject their partners to abuse. Also, let me be quick to add that many men, in greater proportions to women, use violence to get their way.
On the other hand, if you are the woman who wants to manipulate the situation, I have the same advice. Violence is not acceptable. You shouldn’t be doing it. Moreover if you (or men) know the psychological buttons that set off your partner and are using them, although the law doesn’t give your loved one any legal justification to retaliate, you still should not be pushing those buttons and inflaming the situation. If your man (or woman) truly is a psycho or sociopath, truly is a bad provider, or pathetic in bed, he or she is worthless, either get him professional help, find positive ways to encourage the good behavior, or get out. It’s dangerous to psychologically beat down your man (or woman) and when it works to your advantage, it is counterproductive and despicable.
2. If you find your partner in flagrant infidelity, don’t become a one person vigilante.
Instead you should count it as a blessing because you have thereby discovered, without the nasty nagging uncertainty when you just suspected it, that it’s time to get out. So, instead of becoming a criminal defendant and going to jail, gather and preserve the proof, assess the situation with a professional third party, and make your decision, whether to try to preserve the relationship or move on.
3. When one partner emails and texts long, exaggerated dissertations about all of your flaws, this is a warning flag.
Not always, but at times, what the partner is doing is creating a profile to use against you. How is this done? Because if one party wants to punish and destroy the other, yet the recipient wants to appease the other partner and preserve the relationship at all costs, the party on the mission knows you will not respond to defend yourself. Then there will be a very one-sided set of communications in which it looks like you are agreeing to all the bad stuff about you and admitting that it is true. The best thing to do in such a situation is to send a message similar to the following, “Dear Truelove, while I don’t agree with what you are saying about me and much of it is an exaggeration and a caricature, apparently I have some aspects about myself you don’t appreciate. Let’s make an appointment with a professional and discuss them so that we can put such issues in context and solve them.”
Again, this is what you need to understand. Sometimes partners, in order to take the role of the victim, purposely exaggerate your flaws and minimize their problems. In response, sometimes in a foolish effort to appease the “victim monger” you will concede and beg for forgiveness not realizing that those emails, letters and texts may be read by a third-party at some point in the future. Don’t get set up.
An additional caution, don’t go to the opposite extreme and respond to texts and emails by getting crazy and engaging in threats. In my practice, again, I have found that a lot of men tend to go crazy in social media, emails and texts by spilling their guts and being “unwise.” Don’t do it. Be smart.
3. If your partner wants distance and tells you that certain types of contact or all communication is to stop, then by all means comply with that request. On the other hand, if you are the person requesting that certain communications or contact stop for a time, don’t then say or do things that give your partner hope that with a few presents, rental payments or troubadours sent to your window the floodgates of love will again freely flow. This is especially hard for guys to understand. Because guys don’t always understand they are being played. This is because they are taught in sport, “FAW & NLU,” or “find a way and never let up,” and many other such sayings. Such training is invaluable on the field of play but sometimes so admirable, when it works, in the game of love. But when it doesn’t, things go badly very quickly.
In Utah you can be charged with criminal stalking if you “intentionally or knowingly” engage “in a course of conduct directed at a specific person and [you know] or should know that the course of conduct would cause a reasonable person:” to either “fear for the person’s own safety or the safety of a third person or to suffer other emotional distress.” In regards hereto, it is not a defense that you were “not given actual notice that the course of conduct was unwanted; or [you] did not intend to cause the victim fear or other emotional distress.”
What does this mean? Well, a course of conduct means “two or more” actions in which you yourself or through another person follow, observe, photograph, survey, threaten, or most importantly, communicate with or interfere with another’s property by any action, method, device or means. It also includes something as innocent as approaching the other person, going to their work place or other location to give them flowers, or basically in any way interact with the other person that other person finds objectionable. This type of criminal offense can, depending upon prior circumstances, arise to the level of a second-degree felony.
Also in Utah you can be charged with electronic communication harassment if with the intent to annoy, alarm, intimidate, defend, abuse, threaten, harass, frighten, or disrupt the electronic communication of another you repeatedly send electronic communications after the recipient has requested or informed you not to contact them anymore and you persist in doing so. Or you engage in other types of electronic communications that are meant to provoke, or overload their system. This, depending upon past behavior, can arise to the level of a third-degree felony.
4. If a police officer tells you not to have contact with another person because that other person is indicating that it is unwelcome, by all means stop the contact.
If a police officer tells you to stop contact with a partner because it is unwanted, then it’s going to be pretty hard to claim that you are unaware that your behavior was unwelcome.
5. Do not use the legal system simply to do what you do not have the ability or courage to do and that is to tell a partner in certain and clear terms when a relationship is over and the contact is to cease. Do not use the legal system simply to embarrass your partner or to “teach them a lesson.” Only use the legal system when it is evident that direct communication has not or will not work and you have a reasonable belief that you are in danger.
If, on the other hand, your estranged partner does not understand what stop or no means, is engaging in threatening, aggressive, or violent behavior, call the police, file a protective order with assistance for the courts under the cohabitants Spousal Abuse Act, and get legal help. Also, realize that the piece of paper is meaningless if the person it is given to or served with will not obey the law. So take the measures necessary to protect your safety.
6. Do not hash out relationship problems with your partner’s children whether minors or adults. It is inappropriate to involve children in your mature adult relationship.
7. Do not involve parents in your relationship problems unless both partners in the relationship agree thereto.
8. If you have a problem with your partner that involves something that partner is capable of doing or not doing, then discuss it directly with them before you discuss it with your hairdresser, televangelist, second cousin, director, or post it on social media where it will live longer than you will.
9. Lastly, as the character Bill Parrish states in the film, Meet Joe Black, remember that love, “[I]s passion, obsession, someone you can't live without. I say, fall head over heels. Find someone you can love like crazy and who will love you the same way back. How do you find him? Forget your head, and listen to your heart... Run the risk. If you get hurt, you’ll come back. 'Cause the truth is, there's no sense living your life without this. To make the journey and not fall deeply in love, well, you haven't lived a life at all. But you have to try, 'cause if you haven't tried, you haven't lived.”
Yet, I say, when that someone you have found to love you like crazy is no longer wanting you to love them back like crazy, forget your heart and listen to your head. Cause the truth is, there's no sense getting a protective order filed against you, getting criminally charged or living your life in jail trying to win that which is no longer win-able. To make the journey, spend a lot of money on attorneys and have a criminal charge or jail time, well, you haven't lived a smart life at all. Be smart and stay loving my friends.
Loren M. Lambert © November 22, 2015.
The following is an important community service announcement that applies to all persons who seek or desire sexual fulfillment, romance, intimacy, companionship, econo-domestic partnership or mutual servitude.
This message is especially important for those souls who find themselves in the artistic community and seek, not necessarily tranquility and predictability, but rambunctious passion that sweeps them off of their feet. The trouble with rambunctious passion is that it can run to you, sweep you off your feet, enfold you in an unrelenting whirlpool that either drowns you or causes you to struggle and fight to get out. Upon escaping you are then either deflated and disconsolate, or, thanking God, the fates and sheer dumb luck that you survived. Then sometimes a third course or option is that you are left, just as quickly and surprisingly as you were embraced, with a pain, a desolation, a longing and an insatiable hunger. You find you cannot be without that other one which then leads you to your ruin or your eventual bliss if you win the fight and gain the favor of your love.
I have found that among actors, artists, film makers, dancers, directors, choreographers, photographers and clowns that they don’t just want to be in a relationship, they want to be all tangled up in it as the center of attention in the maelstrom of life. And herein lies the problem for such souls: the truth is, sometimes there is not much of a difference between love and manipulation, passion and stalking, devotion and criminal harassment, obsession and adoration, and ball busting and nurturing.
Often the difference between them is the difference in timing, the context, the intensity of your particular excesses, addictions or quirks, and the willingness of your partner to appreciate or tolerate your excesses, addictions or quirks. At times those excesses, addictions or quirks can, and sometimes should, get you into serious trouble with the law.
Here are some helpful guidelines to save you a lot of grief and money, and steer you clear of the law.
1. Physical violence either direct or indirect is never okay and should not be justified or excused. This includes threatening to commit harm against anyone or their property.
Granted, everyone has a right to defend themselves even against a beloved or not so beloved partner. But, guys (mostly guys) even when you rightfully defend yourself or your property against a woman, for better or worse, the cop, investigator, prosecutor, judge and God will, 99% of the time, regardless of what you say, blame you for any bruises or marks that end up on your partner due to your self defense or defense of your property.
I’ve known this to be true, even when I’ve been involved in cases where the woman has self inflicted injuries. I guarantee you, men, you are better off running from the woman that is attacking you or about to destroy all of your worldly possessions than trying to defend yourself or your property.
Only engage in self defense when absolutely necessary to avoid bodily harm or save your life. If that is not necessary and you can’t run, and your woman is not carrying a weapon that could inflict serious harm or death, duck and cover, or do what you’re supposed to do when a grizzly bear attacks you: curl into the fetal position. This may be against every instinct in your body but although I’m sure I’ll get many angry women responding to this post and saying that I’m incorrect, most angry women attacking you are like that same grizzly bear, they will only rip you to shreds if you remain standing in their path and confront them. Why?
Because a few women are very smart and devious. They don’t attack to necessarily win the fight with you, they attack because they are so angry and distraught they want you to realize it, and change. Then at times, there are an even fewer number who don’t care if they sustain some little damage in the process. In a twisted sort of way, these very few in number, want you to oblige them and give them some evidence to blame on you or they want to be a martyr. Don’t be participate in that.
Now, in order to not get too many hate responses, again this only applies to a very limited number of women. I do not want to diminish the problem with domestic abuse and males that actually are the aggressors and do subject their partners to abuse. Also, let me be quick to add that many men, in greater proportions to women, use violence to get their way.
On the other hand, if you are the woman who wants to manipulate the situation, I have the same advice. Violence is not acceptable. You shouldn’t be doing it. Moreover if you (or men) know the psychological buttons that set off your partner and are using them, although the law doesn’t give your loved one any legal justification to retaliate, you still should not be pushing those buttons and inflaming the situation. If your man (or woman) truly is a psycho or sociopath, truly is a bad provider, or pathetic in bed, he or she is worthless, either get him professional help, find positive ways to encourage the good behavior, or get out. It’s dangerous to psychologically beat down your man (or woman) and when it works to your advantage, it is counterproductive and despicable.
2. If you find your partner in flagrant infidelity, don’t become a one person vigilante.
Instead you should count it as a blessing because you have thereby discovered, without the nasty nagging uncertainty when you just suspected it, that it’s time to get out. So, instead of becoming a criminal defendant and going to jail, gather and preserve the proof, assess the situation with a professional third party, and make your decision, whether to try to preserve the relationship or move on.
3. When one partner emails and texts long, exaggerated dissertations about all of your flaws, this is a warning flag.
Not always, but at times, what the partner is doing is creating a profile to use against you. How is this done? Because if one party wants to punish and destroy the other, yet the recipient wants to appease the other partner and preserve the relationship at all costs, the party on the mission knows you will not respond to defend yourself. Then there will be a very one-sided set of communications in which it looks like you are agreeing to all the bad stuff about you and admitting that it is true. The best thing to do in such a situation is to send a message similar to the following, “Dear Truelove, while I don’t agree with what you are saying about me and much of it is an exaggeration and a caricature, apparently I have some aspects about myself you don’t appreciate. Let’s make an appointment with a professional and discuss them so that we can put such issues in context and solve them.”
Again, this is what you need to understand. Sometimes partners, in order to take the role of the victim, purposely exaggerate your flaws and minimize their problems. In response, sometimes in a foolish effort to appease the “victim monger” you will concede and beg for forgiveness not realizing that those emails, letters and texts may be read by a third-party at some point in the future. Don’t get set up.
An additional caution, don’t go to the opposite extreme and respond to texts and emails by getting crazy and engaging in threats. In my practice, again, I have found that a lot of men tend to go crazy in social media, emails and texts by spilling their guts and being “unwise.” Don’t do it. Be smart.
3. If your partner wants distance and tells you that certain types of contact or all communication is to stop, then by all means comply with that request. On the other hand, if you are the person requesting that certain communications or contact stop for a time, don’t then say or do things that give your partner hope that with a few presents, rental payments or troubadours sent to your window the floodgates of love will again freely flow. This is especially hard for guys to understand. Because guys don’t always understand they are being played. This is because they are taught in sport, “FAW & NLU,” or “find a way and never let up,” and many other such sayings. Such training is invaluable on the field of play but sometimes so admirable, when it works, in the game of love. But when it doesn’t, things go badly very quickly.
In Utah you can be charged with criminal stalking if you “intentionally or knowingly” engage “in a course of conduct directed at a specific person and [you know] or should know that the course of conduct would cause a reasonable person:” to either “fear for the person’s own safety or the safety of a third person or to suffer other emotional distress.” In regards hereto, it is not a defense that you were “not given actual notice that the course of conduct was unwanted; or [you] did not intend to cause the victim fear or other emotional distress.”
What does this mean? Well, a course of conduct means “two or more” actions in which you yourself or through another person follow, observe, photograph, survey, threaten, or most importantly, communicate with or interfere with another’s property by any action, method, device or means. It also includes something as innocent as approaching the other person, going to their work place or other location to give them flowers, or basically in any way interact with the other person that other person finds objectionable. This type of criminal offense can, depending upon prior circumstances, arise to the level of a second-degree felony.
Also in Utah you can be charged with electronic communication harassment if with the intent to annoy, alarm, intimidate, defend, abuse, threaten, harass, frighten, or disrupt the electronic communication of another you repeatedly send electronic communications after the recipient has requested or informed you not to contact them anymore and you persist in doing so. Or you engage in other types of electronic communications that are meant to provoke, or overload their system. This, depending upon past behavior, can arise to the level of a third-degree felony.
4. If a police officer tells you not to have contact with another person because that other person is indicating that it is unwelcome, by all means stop the contact.
If a police officer tells you to stop contact with a partner because it is unwanted, then it’s going to be pretty hard to claim that you are unaware that your behavior was unwelcome.
5. Do not use the legal system simply to do what you do not have the ability or courage to do and that is to tell a partner in certain and clear terms when a relationship is over and the contact is to cease. Do not use the legal system simply to embarrass your partner or to “teach them a lesson.” Only use the legal system when it is evident that direct communication has not or will not work and you have a reasonable belief that you are in danger.
If, on the other hand, your estranged partner does not understand what stop or no means, is engaging in threatening, aggressive, or violent behavior, call the police, file a protective order with assistance for the courts under the cohabitants Spousal Abuse Act, and get legal help. Also, realize that the piece of paper is meaningless if the person it is given to or served with will not obey the law. So take the measures necessary to protect your safety.
6. Do not hash out relationship problems with your partner’s children whether minors or adults. It is inappropriate to involve children in your mature adult relationship.
7. Do not involve parents in your relationship problems unless both partners in the relationship agree thereto.
8. If you have a problem with your partner that involves something that partner is capable of doing or not doing, then discuss it directly with them before you discuss it with your hairdresser, televangelist, second cousin, director, or post it on social media where it will live longer than you will.
9. Lastly, as the character Bill Parrish states in the film, Meet Joe Black, remember that love, “[I]s passion, obsession, someone you can't live without. I say, fall head over heels. Find someone you can love like crazy and who will love you the same way back. How do you find him? Forget your head, and listen to your heart... Run the risk. If you get hurt, you’ll come back. 'Cause the truth is, there's no sense living your life without this. To make the journey and not fall deeply in love, well, you haven't lived a life at all. But you have to try, 'cause if you haven't tried, you haven't lived.”
Yet, I say, when that someone you have found to love you like crazy is no longer wanting you to love them back like crazy, forget your heart and listen to your head. Cause the truth is, there's no sense getting a protective order filed against you, getting criminally charged or living your life in jail trying to win that which is no longer win-able. To make the journey, spend a lot of money on attorneys and have a criminal charge or jail time, well, you haven't lived a smart life at all. Be smart and stay loving my friends.
Loren M. Lambert © November 22, 2015.
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Progressives, Liberals and Democrats: Border Control Is Indispensable For Security and Liberty
We have to remember that ISIS is not a State. It should not be treated as such, Pres. Obama stated recently.
They are wise words so we don't over react to challenges terrorists pose. We must not either under react.
They are wise words so we don't over react to challenges terrorists pose. We must not either under react.
The internet allows a sifting of populations in such a manner that a
radical group can attract all the unbalanced, insane and easily
manipulated to their cause so that their presence is concentrated and
they have prominence that they otherwise would not have had in the past.
There members also include many that have money and access to arms. Due
to their composition, they will also be manipulated by rogue regimes.
Yet the same technology that allows that same minority the ability to attract the few can also galvanize, equip and organize the many who want peace, liberty and freedom for all.
And, here is what is becoming very apparent and is a reality that progressives, liberals and democrats need to come to gripes with and get behind: knowing who enters your borders and leaves them (or doesn't leave) is indispensable. Not to artificially or inhumanely control the flow of labor, immigration and refugees, but to ensure that those who are within the pathological and criminal minority cannot hide in plane sight due to our naivety.
All the laws and reforms on immigration and the best internal security and policing are undermined and useless without sophisticated entry and exit controls that combine the use of high-tech and low tech barriers and monitors of population movement between international borders. This needs to be done and coordinated among all free nations. Only then will we be able to predict, ahead of the curve, the coalescence of forces like ISIS and to thereby stop them.
Yet the same technology that allows that same minority the ability to attract the few can also galvanize, equip and organize the many who want peace, liberty and freedom for all.
And, here is what is becoming very apparent and is a reality that progressives, liberals and democrats need to come to gripes with and get behind: knowing who enters your borders and leaves them (or doesn't leave) is indispensable. Not to artificially or inhumanely control the flow of labor, immigration and refugees, but to ensure that those who are within the pathological and criminal minority cannot hide in plane sight due to our naivety.
All the laws and reforms on immigration and the best internal security and policing are undermined and useless without sophisticated entry and exit controls that combine the use of high-tech and low tech barriers and monitors of population movement between international borders. This needs to be done and coordinated among all free nations. Only then will we be able to predict, ahead of the curve, the coalescence of forces like ISIS and to thereby stop them.
Illegal Alien and Criminal Enterprise, or Undocumented Worker and His Out of Compliance Proprietor?
I met with my client and his employer this afternoon. Both are complicit in their working relationship. Both are aware that my client has no legal right to be working here and the employer knows he has no right to be employing him.
My client came here originally on an H2-a Visa. It allows ranchers, who allegedly can show they have tried to employ US Citizens under US labor laws without success, to pay extremely low wages to the "guest workers." In the 1990's the wages were about $600-700 a month, plus very basic food rations and austere living quarters--meaning rice, beans, some protein, a tiny sheep herder's cabin and travel to and from their country of origin (usually Peru, Ecuador and a few other countries). There are no other benefits.
These workers basically work from sun up to sun down, seven days a week in dangerous conditions, with few holidays, Sundays and weekends off depending on the employer. Except for recently, the wages had only gone up to $900 a month, but over the next several years, according to the employer, wages will climb to as high $2300 a month with all other conditions remaining the same.
When my client came here over two decades ago, he lost his dominant arm in a grain auger lacking its safety housing (it may not have prevented the injury--but we'll never know). I do not at this time know the reason it was missing. He was paid Worker's Compensation (66% of his wage while recuperating, his medical expenses, and a modest indemnification of about $30,000 for his missing arm). His employer promised him employment for as long as he wanted it and has been true to his word.
The employer has treated my client well (by his standards), paying modest bonuses and conducting himself in a courteous manner.
The only problem is, despite attempting to gain residency or citizenship, my client's visa expired in 2003 and was not renewed. Because of that, he had a dilemma. He could return to his country and be completely impoverished, knowing it would be difficult for him to find work without both arms, or he could remain but then be unable to safely return for visits and travel back to the US because his visa had expired. He chose to stay and his employer kept him on.
Under the law, this strips the employer of the right to pay the suppressed wage rate and subjects my client to deportation, and, as stated, the inability to leave and return.
As often occurs in all morally deficient, repugnant, inequitable or illegal arrangements--master/slave, consignor/indentured servant, landowner/sharecropper, coyote/illegally smuggled immigrant, pimp/prostitute, etc--the relationship becomes one in which one or the other--depending on the consequences of separation or of legal intervention--can exploit the circumstances of the other. It also distorts and corrupts the human interaction between them. Usually, the party with the power is the employer and usually that employer sees himself, whether true or not, (more often true) as playing a benevolent role regardless of the actual circumstances. Yet, I am not unsympathetic to the employer in this case. After all, my client is making more money than he would in his country.
In this case, there is a difference of opinion regarding whether amounts are still due to my client pursuant to federal law. Moreover, although he is currently working, my client probably could not find work from anyone else in the U.S. due to his advanced age, lack of dental and medical care, and his missing dominant arm. Indubitably, he would not find work in Peru. At this stage in his life he feels so exhausted that he doesn't know how much longer he can endure the grind of ranching. He is virtually a prisoner of his circumstances and a slave to the ranch–however benevolent it may seem or be.
Also, he has not seen his family in over ten years and has no family here to speak of. He wants to return to his country but wants to know if he can obtain more benefits or negotiate a pension from his employer. So what does he do? What does the law allow?
He may technically qualify for worker's compensation permanent disability benefits since he is not working in a competitive work environment. But this is not clear due to the fact that he is currently working--even though he is barely holding on. (I can personally vouch for the fact he has been a very hard worker, but I can see the pain in his face and the despair in his eyes from 35 years of hard labor out in the elements). He also has a right to pursue minimum and overtime wages for the past 2 to 3 years, but is reluctant to pursue such a claim that could require his employer to pay a significant amount. Also, the law is not so clear for undocumented workers.
So the question is, who's side do you pick? What is fair under the circumstances, that the law impose its penalty, or that circumstances be left on their own?
It was interesting meeting with both sides at the same time. I got the sense that the employer is an honorable, hard working man, but one who is unable to see things from his employees' points of view, who feels no compunction regarding legal niceties and views himself as above the law. The only law he thinks should apply is the law he negotiates with his servants.
So is my client an illegal alien or an undocumented worker? And is his employer a criminal enterprise or an out of compliance proprietor?
Loren M. Lambert © November 18, 2015
My client came here originally on an H2-a Visa. It allows ranchers, who allegedly can show they have tried to employ US Citizens under US labor laws without success, to pay extremely low wages to the "guest workers." In the 1990's the wages were about $600-700 a month, plus very basic food rations and austere living quarters--meaning rice, beans, some protein, a tiny sheep herder's cabin and travel to and from their country of origin (usually Peru, Ecuador and a few other countries). There are no other benefits.
These workers basically work from sun up to sun down, seven days a week in dangerous conditions, with few holidays, Sundays and weekends off depending on the employer. Except for recently, the wages had only gone up to $900 a month, but over the next several years, according to the employer, wages will climb to as high $2300 a month with all other conditions remaining the same.
When my client came here over two decades ago, he lost his dominant arm in a grain auger lacking its safety housing (it may not have prevented the injury--but we'll never know). I do not at this time know the reason it was missing. He was paid Worker's Compensation (66% of his wage while recuperating, his medical expenses, and a modest indemnification of about $30,000 for his missing arm). His employer promised him employment for as long as he wanted it and has been true to his word.
The employer has treated my client well (by his standards), paying modest bonuses and conducting himself in a courteous manner.
The only problem is, despite attempting to gain residency or citizenship, my client's visa expired in 2003 and was not renewed. Because of that, he had a dilemma. He could return to his country and be completely impoverished, knowing it would be difficult for him to find work without both arms, or he could remain but then be unable to safely return for visits and travel back to the US because his visa had expired. He chose to stay and his employer kept him on.
Under the law, this strips the employer of the right to pay the suppressed wage rate and subjects my client to deportation, and, as stated, the inability to leave and return.
As often occurs in all morally deficient, repugnant, inequitable or illegal arrangements--master/slave, consignor/indentured servant, landowner/sharecropper, coyote/illegally smuggled immigrant, pimp/prostitute, etc--the relationship becomes one in which one or the other--depending on the consequences of separation or of legal intervention--can exploit the circumstances of the other. It also distorts and corrupts the human interaction between them. Usually, the party with the power is the employer and usually that employer sees himself, whether true or not, (more often true) as playing a benevolent role regardless of the actual circumstances. Yet, I am not unsympathetic to the employer in this case. After all, my client is making more money than he would in his country.
In this case, there is a difference of opinion regarding whether amounts are still due to my client pursuant to federal law. Moreover, although he is currently working, my client probably could not find work from anyone else in the U.S. due to his advanced age, lack of dental and medical care, and his missing dominant arm. Indubitably, he would not find work in Peru. At this stage in his life he feels so exhausted that he doesn't know how much longer he can endure the grind of ranching. He is virtually a prisoner of his circumstances and a slave to the ranch–however benevolent it may seem or be.
Also, he has not seen his family in over ten years and has no family here to speak of. He wants to return to his country but wants to know if he can obtain more benefits or negotiate a pension from his employer. So what does he do? What does the law allow?
He may technically qualify for worker's compensation permanent disability benefits since he is not working in a competitive work environment. But this is not clear due to the fact that he is currently working--even though he is barely holding on. (I can personally vouch for the fact he has been a very hard worker, but I can see the pain in his face and the despair in his eyes from 35 years of hard labor out in the elements). He also has a right to pursue minimum and overtime wages for the past 2 to 3 years, but is reluctant to pursue such a claim that could require his employer to pay a significant amount. Also, the law is not so clear for undocumented workers.
So the question is, who's side do you pick? What is fair under the circumstances, that the law impose its penalty, or that circumstances be left on their own?
It was interesting meeting with both sides at the same time. I got the sense that the employer is an honorable, hard working man, but one who is unable to see things from his employees' points of view, who feels no compunction regarding legal niceties and views himself as above the law. The only law he thinks should apply is the law he negotiates with his servants.
So is my client an illegal alien or an undocumented worker? And is his employer a criminal enterprise or an out of compliance proprietor?
Loren M. Lambert © November 18, 2015
Monday, November 16, 2015
Veteran’s Day–Is Greatness Measured by The Number of Lives Ruined or Spent?
I am a veteran. I served at Ft. Lewis in I Corps and then in the 9th Infantry Division as a JAG Officer. I was trained at Ft. Lee, the Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School, in Charlottesville, Virginia and lastly at Ft. Benning where I had the dynamic and instructive experience of training with paratroopers and jumping with them in five jumps from perfectly sound cargo planes. I have to say, it is a beautiful and exhilarating experience to behold as a participant, the blooming of canopies, like so many giant flowers, in a peach and red sunset over Georgia. I only was in for one tour and it was an important part of my life that I am grateful for so, as a Veteran, I thank you for allowing me to serve.
Although I never served overseas in a combat zone, there were a couple JAGs from my office that served in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War. I also represented and was a neighbor to numerous veterans of several wars. I don’t share this because I deserve or want thanks. I share this because we have a country in which so few have the privilege and the incredible benefit of serving in their country's armed forces. I served because I believe serving in the armed forces is the best way to focus the hearts, minds and bodies of all U.S. citizens on the importance of being or electing wise, balanced leadership that can maintain our preparedness yet not engage us in unnecessary wars.
Currently it is still, even with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, a very small percentage of the military that bears the great burden of combat and an even smaller number that pay the ultimate price with their wounded bodies, minds and lives. It is this group that deserves our concern, support and praise. Yet, it is this group that would be more greatly honored by the conviction and understanding that we all have a responsibility of bearing the burden of protection by having the direct responsibility of maintaining and promoting peace and democracy. And how is the burden borne by us all?
On NPR today, one of the commentators indicated with a question, that patriotism and support for our veterans means that we cannot voice opposition to the wars they have fought in or are fighting in. Nothing could be further from the truth. To honor veterans, to truly and patriotically honor their sacrifice, is to understand that we all must make sure that no blood is spilled casually, injudiciously or without great need. I fear that because this burden is borne by so few, our politicians and potential presidents can talk about making America great again in the same manner that wealthy people demonstrate greatness by the amount of money they can casually waste and the way many despots demonstrate their greatness by the number of lives they can casually expend. Let’s not be these despots. Let us honor our veterans by taking care of them, serving in our military, and electing wise leaders that will only involve us in war as a last resort.
Loren M. Lambert Nov. 11, 2015 ©
Although I never served overseas in a combat zone, there were a couple JAGs from my office that served in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War. I also represented and was a neighbor to numerous veterans of several wars. I don’t share this because I deserve or want thanks. I share this because we have a country in which so few have the privilege and the incredible benefit of serving in their country's armed forces. I served because I believe serving in the armed forces is the best way to focus the hearts, minds and bodies of all U.S. citizens on the importance of being or electing wise, balanced leadership that can maintain our preparedness yet not engage us in unnecessary wars.
Currently it is still, even with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, a very small percentage of the military that bears the great burden of combat and an even smaller number that pay the ultimate price with their wounded bodies, minds and lives. It is this group that deserves our concern, support and praise. Yet, it is this group that would be more greatly honored by the conviction and understanding that we all have a responsibility of bearing the burden of protection by having the direct responsibility of maintaining and promoting peace and democracy. And how is the burden borne by us all?
On NPR today, one of the commentators indicated with a question, that patriotism and support for our veterans means that we cannot voice opposition to the wars they have fought in or are fighting in. Nothing could be further from the truth. To honor veterans, to truly and patriotically honor their sacrifice, is to understand that we all must make sure that no blood is spilled casually, injudiciously or without great need. I fear that because this burden is borne by so few, our politicians and potential presidents can talk about making America great again in the same manner that wealthy people demonstrate greatness by the amount of money they can casually waste and the way many despots demonstrate their greatness by the number of lives they can casually expend. Let’s not be these despots. Let us honor our veterans by taking care of them, serving in our military, and electing wise leaders that will only involve us in war as a last resort.
Loren M. Lambert Nov. 11, 2015 ©
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Candlelight Media, a Light on the Hill for Christians but Not for Writers
About a decade ago, I engaged Candlelight Media, a Provo based film production and distributing company that is run by a very devout LDS family, the Broughs (yes, I think that this fact is relevant to the story). I sent them a couple of my scripts. After reading them, they indicated an interest in employing me to write a screenplay for them. Before I was given a written contract, I was told that they wanted to pay me a “reasonable amount” for my work.
Of course what is or is not reasonable is in the eye of the beholder, and any party to discussions about what one should get paid should not be offended by the undisclosed and subjective expectations of the other–ever! They only thing that should occur is a discussion to arrive at an agreement, if that can be done. Along these lines, as an attorney I am often involved in the negotiation of lawsuits. I’m always flabbergasted when one or the other side of a dispute claims offense at the other’s opening offer and leaves the negotiations without trying to engage and make a counter offer to resolve the dispute or finalize the deal. Hold this thought, because it comes into play later.
I met with Brian Brough before I had been given a contract. He provided me a simple idea for a film and had me start writing it. The idea was basically this: a couple becomes marooned on an island. While there, they solidify their Christian faith and fortify their marriage. Excited, I immediately outlined my screenplay from beginning to end and was about halfway through writing the screenplay when I received the contract.
It was basically this: they wanted me to write the screenplay, and several rewrites under their direction, and if they liked what I wrote, they would pay me $500, but this was not an obligation, and they would decide whether or not to give me a writing credit. Moreover, pay or no pay, they would own all rights to whatever I wrote. Now, many writers who have published works, and even some like me who have not had any significant publications, would have perhaps been offended by their contract. I was not. But, fortunately or unfortunately my business acumen kicked in and I wanted to make a counter offer. So I discussed with several people in the industry what would be a reasonable amount to pay a first time screenwriter. Based upon those discussions I made a counteroffer which was admittedly at the higher end of the amount first time writer’s are paid, but within the ballpark.
Immediately, taking offense at my counteroffer, Candlelight Media, instructed me to hand over all of my writing to date, accused me of only being interested in money, and schooled me on how difficult it is to make money in the film business. They also, with great fanfare, discussed how they could not make any money if they paid me and others for our work.
To say the least, this was astounding to me. While my desire to maximize my economic benefit was seen as perverse, their desire to maximize their economic interest and turn a profit to “preserve the family business,” took on some messianic priority over the interests of the people who worked for them. During my discussions with them over their contract, many of the terms and words to express their position, indicated that they viewed themselves as somehow working as an undeclared arm of the LDS Church. Therefore, they had a mission and myself and others as their missionaries, metaphorically speaking, should be grateful to donate our time and money while it should be left to them, the right and moral authority, to actually earn any money. They also emphasized what a great opportunity it was for me to write for them whether I got paid or not. And to tell you the truth, they were probably right.
Nevertheless, at the time this all took me by surprise. I never expected this reaction. I thought I was engaging in a negotiation with a professional business. Despite this, as stated, I really was grateful for a chance to have possibly gotten a film of mine produced. Therefore I tried to repair the relationship. I drastically reduced my expectations and attempted to re-engage them by proposing a contract that would have at least paid me a token amount and that in the event that the film became profitable, only then would I get paid a very modest amount for a first time screenwriter. Unfortunately, the response I was given was an unconditional demand to turn in my work to date, to cease further work on my screenplay, and a resolute decision that they would engage in no further negotiations with me.
Well, I didn’t cease writing nor give them my work but I did finish the screenplay. It sits unproduced while they produced their own version of the basic premise. Although the bulk of my screenplay is witty, funny and compelling, it admittedly needs a little more work. It probably could’ve been fashioned by someone with Candlelight Media’s experience into a good, if not great, screenplay.
The reason I did not relinquish my work is because the law was indisputably on my side and a mere idea does not create an intellectual property right. Moreover, I would have been happy to have turned it over to them provided I had been paid, based upon what they had already promised, a “reasonable amount.” I didn’t know what that amount should specifically be, but I knew it wasn’t “maybe we''ll pay you $500 if we want to.”
Although I’ve discussed this experience with some people, I’ve never written about it because I always thought maybe there was a possibility of repairing the “offense” caused to “Candlelight Media." After all, they are still one of the power brokers in the limited Utah film market and are a force to be reckoned with. I do so now because I think the experience is a cautionary tale to others. I’m also hoping that production companies like Candlelight Media will understand that one is worth what one is able to negotiate. If you think someone is asking for more than they are worth, you simply tell them so and realize that while you may have the power to hold your ground, you do not have a superior moral right to your position. It is not a matter of morality, it’s a matter of business. At least give the other that amount of dignity and respect.
Unfortunately, the reality is that the film industry is riddled with many talented and hard-working individuals and companies that are desperate to “make it.” Because of that desperation and drive to succeed, some of them will claw their way to the top. Many of them do not care who they use, claw or step on to get there. Moreover when they do get there, they stand upon their pinnacle and disparage anyone who would dare even hint that they had been clawed, stepped on or used by them on their way up or who dared to ask to be paid.
Sometimes, though, a few have enough self-awareness to know how they got where they did, will do the right thing and graciously reach down to give a hand up to all who helped them in their success. Most will not. Moreover, the oppressed who make it to the top, sometimes then become the oppressors, and start the cycle of exploitation all over again.
Also, since there are so few players in the industry that are successful, they can take the position that the Brough family of Candlelight Media has taken, that they are entitled to make money, as a moral right, while those they deem fit to perform entry-level jobs are not. The fact is, Candlelight Media, nor anyone else, has a moral right to either use people or to disparage and take offense against those who would attempt to negotiate their pay. The only thing they have is their “might,” and while “might” may allow them to obtain volunteer and minimally-paid actors, writers and crew members, they should not take offense at those who decline to volunteer their services or who attempt to negotiate higher wages. They can simply do what they have the power to do based upon the value they think they are getting by saying, “this is a take it or leave it offer, do not attempt to negotiate it.”
To this day, although I do not think it was wrong or misguided for me to have attempted to secure greater economic value for my labor, I wish I would have been wise enough to have figured out a way to have at least made my proposal in a manner that it would have been rejected without offense or at least a minimal improvement in my contract could have been offered. Or, I wish I would have known that the contract was nonnegotiable--maybe I would’ve signed it. But here’s the reality, offense is usually not intended in such situations, but it is taken. There may have been nothing I could have done that could have avoided Candlelight Media from taking offense. They were the experienced parties in these negotiations and I, unfortunately, was not.
Yet, I do know that they were right about one thing- I have been unable to find similar writing opportunities. So maybe “might” does make “right,” and maybe the only way to make it in this business is to prostrate your services until they are valued by those who have good money to reward you for those services.
Nevertheless, I would urge both the employers/contractors seeking services and the employees/independent contractors offering services, to make their intentions clear at the very beginning, before either start performing. That way there are no misunderstandings regarding whether or not an initial offer is negotiable and so it is established categorically what is a “reasonable amount.”
Loren M Lambert, October 5, 2015 ©
Of course what is or is not reasonable is in the eye of the beholder, and any party to discussions about what one should get paid should not be offended by the undisclosed and subjective expectations of the other–ever! They only thing that should occur is a discussion to arrive at an agreement, if that can be done. Along these lines, as an attorney I am often involved in the negotiation of lawsuits. I’m always flabbergasted when one or the other side of a dispute claims offense at the other’s opening offer and leaves the negotiations without trying to engage and make a counter offer to resolve the dispute or finalize the deal. Hold this thought, because it comes into play later.
I met with Brian Brough before I had been given a contract. He provided me a simple idea for a film and had me start writing it. The idea was basically this: a couple becomes marooned on an island. While there, they solidify their Christian faith and fortify their marriage. Excited, I immediately outlined my screenplay from beginning to end and was about halfway through writing the screenplay when I received the contract.
It was basically this: they wanted me to write the screenplay, and several rewrites under their direction, and if they liked what I wrote, they would pay me $500, but this was not an obligation, and they would decide whether or not to give me a writing credit. Moreover, pay or no pay, they would own all rights to whatever I wrote. Now, many writers who have published works, and even some like me who have not had any significant publications, would have perhaps been offended by their contract. I was not. But, fortunately or unfortunately my business acumen kicked in and I wanted to make a counter offer. So I discussed with several people in the industry what would be a reasonable amount to pay a first time screenwriter. Based upon those discussions I made a counteroffer which was admittedly at the higher end of the amount first time writer’s are paid, but within the ballpark.
Immediately, taking offense at my counteroffer, Candlelight Media, instructed me to hand over all of my writing to date, accused me of only being interested in money, and schooled me on how difficult it is to make money in the film business. They also, with great fanfare, discussed how they could not make any money if they paid me and others for our work.
To say the least, this was astounding to me. While my desire to maximize my economic benefit was seen as perverse, their desire to maximize their economic interest and turn a profit to “preserve the family business,” took on some messianic priority over the interests of the people who worked for them. During my discussions with them over their contract, many of the terms and words to express their position, indicated that they viewed themselves as somehow working as an undeclared arm of the LDS Church. Therefore, they had a mission and myself and others as their missionaries, metaphorically speaking, should be grateful to donate our time and money while it should be left to them, the right and moral authority, to actually earn any money. They also emphasized what a great opportunity it was for me to write for them whether I got paid or not. And to tell you the truth, they were probably right.
Nevertheless, at the time this all took me by surprise. I never expected this reaction. I thought I was engaging in a negotiation with a professional business. Despite this, as stated, I really was grateful for a chance to have possibly gotten a film of mine produced. Therefore I tried to repair the relationship. I drastically reduced my expectations and attempted to re-engage them by proposing a contract that would have at least paid me a token amount and that in the event that the film became profitable, only then would I get paid a very modest amount for a first time screenwriter. Unfortunately, the response I was given was an unconditional demand to turn in my work to date, to cease further work on my screenplay, and a resolute decision that they would engage in no further negotiations with me.
Well, I didn’t cease writing nor give them my work but I did finish the screenplay. It sits unproduced while they produced their own version of the basic premise. Although the bulk of my screenplay is witty, funny and compelling, it admittedly needs a little more work. It probably could’ve been fashioned by someone with Candlelight Media’s experience into a good, if not great, screenplay.
The reason I did not relinquish my work is because the law was indisputably on my side and a mere idea does not create an intellectual property right. Moreover, I would have been happy to have turned it over to them provided I had been paid, based upon what they had already promised, a “reasonable amount.” I didn’t know what that amount should specifically be, but I knew it wasn’t “maybe we''ll pay you $500 if we want to.”
Although I’ve discussed this experience with some people, I’ve never written about it because I always thought maybe there was a possibility of repairing the “offense” caused to “Candlelight Media." After all, they are still one of the power brokers in the limited Utah film market and are a force to be reckoned with. I do so now because I think the experience is a cautionary tale to others. I’m also hoping that production companies like Candlelight Media will understand that one is worth what one is able to negotiate. If you think someone is asking for more than they are worth, you simply tell them so and realize that while you may have the power to hold your ground, you do not have a superior moral right to your position. It is not a matter of morality, it’s a matter of business. At least give the other that amount of dignity and respect.
Unfortunately, the reality is that the film industry is riddled with many talented and hard-working individuals and companies that are desperate to “make it.” Because of that desperation and drive to succeed, some of them will claw their way to the top. Many of them do not care who they use, claw or step on to get there. Moreover when they do get there, they stand upon their pinnacle and disparage anyone who would dare even hint that they had been clawed, stepped on or used by them on their way up or who dared to ask to be paid.
Sometimes, though, a few have enough self-awareness to know how they got where they did, will do the right thing and graciously reach down to give a hand up to all who helped them in their success. Most will not. Moreover, the oppressed who make it to the top, sometimes then become the oppressors, and start the cycle of exploitation all over again.
Also, since there are so few players in the industry that are successful, they can take the position that the Brough family of Candlelight Media has taken, that they are entitled to make money, as a moral right, while those they deem fit to perform entry-level jobs are not. The fact is, Candlelight Media, nor anyone else, has a moral right to either use people or to disparage and take offense against those who would attempt to negotiate their pay. The only thing they have is their “might,” and while “might” may allow them to obtain volunteer and minimally-paid actors, writers and crew members, they should not take offense at those who decline to volunteer their services or who attempt to negotiate higher wages. They can simply do what they have the power to do based upon the value they think they are getting by saying, “this is a take it or leave it offer, do not attempt to negotiate it.”
To this day, although I do not think it was wrong or misguided for me to have attempted to secure greater economic value for my labor, I wish I would have been wise enough to have figured out a way to have at least made my proposal in a manner that it would have been rejected without offense or at least a minimal improvement in my contract could have been offered. Or, I wish I would have known that the contract was nonnegotiable--maybe I would’ve signed it. But here’s the reality, offense is usually not intended in such situations, but it is taken. There may have been nothing I could have done that could have avoided Candlelight Media from taking offense. They were the experienced parties in these negotiations and I, unfortunately, was not.
Yet, I do know that they were right about one thing- I have been unable to find similar writing opportunities. So maybe “might” does make “right,” and maybe the only way to make it in this business is to prostrate your services until they are valued by those who have good money to reward you for those services.
Nevertheless, I would urge both the employers/contractors seeking services and the employees/independent contractors offering services, to make their intentions clear at the very beginning, before either start performing. That way there are no misunderstandings regarding whether or not an initial offer is negotiable and so it is established categorically what is a “reasonable amount.”
Loren M Lambert, October 5, 2015 ©
Wildlife Access
District Court Ruling Scorns and Schools Utah's Cowboy Legislators Thereby Providing Hope for Advocates of Green Belts and Recreation Access Points -- Good For Everyone!!!!
The Deseret News reported a major win for the body politic by striking down a Utah Legislative driven resource and land grab. Yes, the good old boys at the Utah Legislature tried to give their buddies land and resources they didn't have to pay for and that didn't belong to them. Now anglers can access waterways for fishing. (My buddy Darrell Smith should be pleased).
You may ask, how is it a land grab? Shouldn't private property owners have a right to bar access to public waterways and mountains? Let's ask this a different way. If the public cannot access public waterways and mountains, who effectively owns them? Answer, only those who have access to them. So if land owners are allowed to trump public access rights, they own them.
Next question: Who owns the water-bound and land-roaming wildlife? The answer: those that have access to them. Who should have access to them? Answer: absent aboriginal rights--everyone. That cannot happen if developers and private land owners can slowly but surely prevent all access.
Isn't that a good thing because it limits use and wild life extraction and protects land owners from having to see that they are not the only people on earth? No because it unnecessarily concentrates use to specific areas--with an inequitable burden on the land owners in that area and resulting in overuse and degradation. It also indirectly prevents adequate resource management because the stakeholders become too polarized and contentious with divergent interests.
Bottom line is it's a step in the right direction. The goal should be to reserve, buy back through eminent domain, and create green belts and wildlife corridors of at least 50 feet or more (the belt should be proportional to the size thereof) around every major body of water, flood plane, unstable or radically uneven land area and all public lands. By this means we should also create, every quarter of a mile, access points to all public lands–including the Wasatch Front Mountain Range. And by this means we should create wildlife and access corridors through farm and industrial lands. Such a plan would actually benefit everyone in the long run. This also increase the value of the land on the edge of these green belts and wild life corridors .
Loren M. Lambert, Nov. 6, 2015 ©
Wednesday, November 4, 2015
Respect the Stuff That Can Make You Bleed
About every other month, I nearly cut my finger off. But it's usually never with a big, long, thick, capable-of-severing-my-entire-wrist-sharp knife and it hardly ever occurs while I'm cutting anything of any significance or carving up a new awe-capturing owl sculpture.
No, its cutting another slice from the US-portion-sized-Costco honey crisp apple, and I want a piece, and I want it quick so I can eat my favorite dessert of crisp, flavorful apple, like the ones I picked fresh as a kid and then adding a dollop of Adam's all natural, no sugar added, peanut butter on it; or it's cutting a local heirloom tomato.
And the knife? Usually it's a Cutco butter knife. But for those who know, for those who have had a son, daughter, friend or relative that needed a job and they were roped into selling the highest-quality-on-the-planet and most expensive knives in the kitchen, you know that even the butter knives are capable of cutting through hard burnt whole grain toast like it was butter. And that's how it happened. Not the toast but with the butter knife.
Lucky my finger nail was there to stop it.
Since it wasn't bad, since my pride hid the pain, since I couldn't believe I kept forgetting my boy scout teaching to never, unless you are a surgeon, cut toward any body parts, and since the apple had a lot of red, it took me a minute or two to realize I was bleeding. But the apple and peanut butter couldn't wait. So, two pints of blood later, it hit me. I do fine on the hard stuff, I do fine on the easy stuff, I do fine with the obviously dangerous stuff. It's the stuff I don't expect, it's the stuff I underestimate, it's the stuff that is soft and insignificant that I'm cutting into with a butter knife, it's the stuff I am too anxious to devour that gets me, causing me to let down my guard and has me cutting toward things that bleed.
So, don't sweat the little stuff, sweat the big stuff, and respect the stuff that you tend to underestimate because it has the potential to make you bleed.
That is you, as in me.
Loren M. Lambert, October 29, 2015 ©
No, its cutting another slice from the US-portion-sized-Costco honey crisp apple, and I want a piece, and I want it quick so I can eat my favorite dessert of crisp, flavorful apple, like the ones I picked fresh as a kid and then adding a dollop of Adam's all natural, no sugar added, peanut butter on it; or it's cutting a local heirloom tomato.
And the knife? Usually it's a Cutco butter knife. But for those who know, for those who have had a son, daughter, friend or relative that needed a job and they were roped into selling the highest-quality-on-the-planet and most expensive knives in the kitchen, you know that even the butter knives are capable of cutting through hard burnt whole grain toast like it was butter. And that's how it happened. Not the toast but with the butter knife.
Lucky my finger nail was there to stop it.
Since it wasn't bad, since my pride hid the pain, since I couldn't believe I kept forgetting my boy scout teaching to never, unless you are a surgeon, cut toward any body parts, and since the apple had a lot of red, it took me a minute or two to realize I was bleeding. But the apple and peanut butter couldn't wait. So, two pints of blood later, it hit me. I do fine on the hard stuff, I do fine on the easy stuff, I do fine with the obviously dangerous stuff. It's the stuff I don't expect, it's the stuff I underestimate, it's the stuff that is soft and insignificant that I'm cutting into with a butter knife, it's the stuff I am too anxious to devour that gets me, causing me to let down my guard and has me cutting toward things that bleed.
So, don't sweat the little stuff, sweat the big stuff, and respect the stuff that you tend to underestimate because it has the potential to make you bleed.
That is you, as in me.
Loren M. Lambert, October 29, 2015 ©
And Still I Dream
She delivered up a rapture that we became completely lost within,
Wrapped in shadows, we wrote our names upon the altar of pardoned sin.
And, trading beating hearts, we forsook all healing from our bleating wounds,
Until triumphant we stood upon civilization’s lovely, blood-reddened tombs,
Dwarfed by a presupposing passion,
Drowned by an oceanic oblivion,
Drawn in by this pluripotent incision.
And still I dream of rivers, of rapids, and of my own
And still I dream of the undertow to take me to my home.
Loren M. Lambert© Nov 1, 2015.
Wrapped in shadows, we wrote our names upon the altar of pardoned sin.
And, trading beating hearts, we forsook all healing from our bleating wounds,
Until triumphant we stood upon civilization’s lovely, blood-reddened tombs,
Dwarfed by a presupposing passion,
Drowned by an oceanic oblivion,
Drawn in by this pluripotent incision.
And still I dream of rivers, of rapids, and of my own
And still I dream of the undertow to take me to my home.
Loren M. Lambert© Nov 1, 2015.
The Primordial Scream & Acting & Being & Writing
I awoke to this piercing scream. My own. I had been dreaming that I was trapped and was repeatedly stung by swarms of wasps. People were nearby.
No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get a word out to call for help. Finally a scream erupted from my throat. It was a scream that would send chills down anyone’s back. It was uninhibited, raw, without any layer of self consciousness or self censure.
It sounded like nothing I would do if you asked me to scream. Yet, to be credible, to scream like your life depended on it, to make people freeze in terror and anxiety, that’s what you have to do- scream without any layer of self consciousness or self censure.
And that’s what you have do when you act, write or engage another human. Whatever you want to communicate must be from the gut and instinctively raw. It must be the scream that erupts from your throat with no layer of self consciousness like you are escaping a swarm of stinging wasps. That's also how love, concern, desire, empathy and charity should be. It needs to erupt from our core.
Loren M. Lambert© Nov 1, 2015.
No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get a word out to call for help. Finally a scream erupted from my throat. It was a scream that would send chills down anyone’s back. It was uninhibited, raw, without any layer of self consciousness or self censure.
It sounded like nothing I would do if you asked me to scream. Yet, to be credible, to scream like your life depended on it, to make people freeze in terror and anxiety, that’s what you have to do- scream without any layer of self consciousness or self censure.
And that’s what you have do when you act, write or engage another human. Whatever you want to communicate must be from the gut and instinctively raw. It must be the scream that erupts from your throat with no layer of self consciousness like you are escaping a swarm of stinging wasps. That's also how love, concern, desire, empathy and charity should be. It needs to erupt from our core.
Loren M. Lambert© Nov 1, 2015.
Friday, October 30, 2015
Planting A Garden In October
About a hundred yards from my home, in a gully in the southeast corner of Van Winkle and 900 South, there is a permanent homeless camp. Several weeks ago I stopped near it to snap a few photos of the sunset over the Wasatch mountains. While there, one of the homeless, a man appearing about 40 years old, asked me if I wanted to come take a picture of the garden he was planting. He seemed sincere and wholly invested in his mission to plant a garden in the fall. Peering back into the overgrown unkempt mass of weeds, brush and trees and the garbage strewn around, I politely declined. While not a psychologist, it was apparent the man was mentally ill.
This last spring and summer there had been a string of burglaries in our neighborhood, including my home. Preceding the thefts, our neighbors have observed the homeless walking among our houses and sometimes knocking on doors to see if people were gone. Some of the culprits appear to be our homeless neighbors from the gully. We’ve complained. But, what do they do?
We have no adequate programs for the mentally ill and homeless. It’s cheaper for the police to allow them to languish in the gully than pester them to move along. My fear is that the harmless, the desperate, the criminal and the violent are congregating and nothing will be done until the crime rises to a level more serious than the thefts we have been experiencing.
It is likely that the cost of doing the right thing in the long run would be cheaper than the crime and the human toll that will result by ignoring it.
I have lived conservative ideals all my life. I’ve worked since the day I was old enough to shovel snow, mow a lawn and throw a paper. I paid for most of my college and have lived within my means and paid my debts and taxes. I espouse fiscal responsibility and I want my taxes to be as low as possible. Yet, my outlook is progressive. I am more concerned about the man planting his fall garden than I am about the corporations and the wealthy who, through the power of their money, have obtained unfair advantages and corporate welfare by manipulating intellectual property, bankruptcy and tax laws.
Some of that interest is selfish. I would rather we provide for the mentally ill so they have their basic needs met rather than having them come through my neighborhood or standing on the corners pan handling. Also, I think it is the right thing to do because its humane, decent and necessary. At the same time, the gully, instead of being trashed with garbage and raw sewage, can be preserved. That would be a better solution than us as a country ignoring the mentally ill who are busy planting gardens in the fall.
Loren M. Lambert, Oct. 29, 2015 ©.
This last spring and summer there had been a string of burglaries in our neighborhood, including my home. Preceding the thefts, our neighbors have observed the homeless walking among our houses and sometimes knocking on doors to see if people were gone. Some of the culprits appear to be our homeless neighbors from the gully. We’ve complained. But, what do they do?
We have no adequate programs for the mentally ill and homeless. It’s cheaper for the police to allow them to languish in the gully than pester them to move along. My fear is that the harmless, the desperate, the criminal and the violent are congregating and nothing will be done until the crime rises to a level more serious than the thefts we have been experiencing.
It is likely that the cost of doing the right thing in the long run would be cheaper than the crime and the human toll that will result by ignoring it.
I have lived conservative ideals all my life. I’ve worked since the day I was old enough to shovel snow, mow a lawn and throw a paper. I paid for most of my college and have lived within my means and paid my debts and taxes. I espouse fiscal responsibility and I want my taxes to be as low as possible. Yet, my outlook is progressive. I am more concerned about the man planting his fall garden than I am about the corporations and the wealthy who, through the power of their money, have obtained unfair advantages and corporate welfare by manipulating intellectual property, bankruptcy and tax laws.
Some of that interest is selfish. I would rather we provide for the mentally ill so they have their basic needs met rather than having them come through my neighborhood or standing on the corners pan handling. Also, I think it is the right thing to do because its humane, decent and necessary. At the same time, the gully, instead of being trashed with garbage and raw sewage, can be preserved. That would be a better solution than us as a country ignoring the mentally ill who are busy planting gardens in the fall.
Loren M. Lambert, Oct. 29, 2015 ©.
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Am In The Thick Of It
When I became a river guide, I found my place, my home. It was something that felt like a comfortable set of clothes.
Yet it started in complete terror, like being thrown from the womb with a complete knowledge of all the misery in the world before feeling your mother's touch, and without knowing life's joy, pleasure and love.
Unlike conventional sports where skills are put upon you by those with expectations to be achieved or you are a disappointment to be discarded, the river had no expectations, no thought of abandoning me, just the constant flow that seduced, enticed and challenged me to find my harmony with it or be left to never know.
When I run a river, the spiritual and physical merge and become concentrated within the thin space that I run. All things fall away and I am the center- not the center of anyone's attention or the center of importance, but at the center of the essence of who I am and what I was, am, can and will be.
While those years riding the waters of the Snake and the Salmon are long behind me, when I dream, there is almost always a river, always a girl, always a boat, always a rapid and I am in the thick of it, and while others would wake up in the sweat of a nightmare, when I wake up, I do so with the longing that the dream continue and having the expectation to return.
So what is that paddle in my hand? It is the tool that allowed me to fall in love with the river and with life and it is the tool that allowed me to access my soul.
Loren M. Lambert © October 28, 2015
Yet it started in complete terror, like being thrown from the womb with a complete knowledge of all the misery in the world before feeling your mother's touch, and without knowing life's joy, pleasure and love.
Unlike conventional sports where skills are put upon you by those with expectations to be achieved or you are a disappointment to be discarded, the river had no expectations, no thought of abandoning me, just the constant flow that seduced, enticed and challenged me to find my harmony with it or be left to never know.
When I run a river, the spiritual and physical merge and become concentrated within the thin space that I run. All things fall away and I am the center- not the center of anyone's attention or the center of importance, but at the center of the essence of who I am and what I was, am, can and will be.
While those years riding the waters of the Snake and the Salmon are long behind me, when I dream, there is almost always a river, always a girl, always a boat, always a rapid and I am in the thick of it, and while others would wake up in the sweat of a nightmare, when I wake up, I do so with the longing that the dream continue and having the expectation to return.
So what is that paddle in my hand? It is the tool that allowed me to fall in love with the river and with life and it is the tool that allowed me to access my soul.
Loren M. Lambert © October 28, 2015
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
A River Runs Through It
Like many [river guides in the north west] where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I [have often run rivers in] the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the [Salmon River] and [the steady two-count rhythm of my paddle strokes] and the hope that [I will always] rise [to make this journey]. Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through [my life]. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.
—Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It (1976) with Loren Lambert's words added to his
—Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It (1976) with Loren Lambert's words added to his
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
Our Virtue As a Nation Is a Collective Virtue
What I do is nobody’s business. What I do is everybody's business. I am only responsible for the consequences of my actions. Everybody is responsible for the consequences of my actions. These are all true statements. We have had no dictator in the United States, not because as a people we have no individuals capable of acting as dictators. We do. Pick any reprehensible person in a foreign country or from any period of time and we have people among us who are capable of acting the same.
Our virtue is a collective virtue. We have no individuals who have been dictators in the United States because we as a people have determined that it is our collective responsibility that no individual be allowed to act as a dictator over us. It is through this virtue that the many who are capable of such degradation are rescued from their own worst natures.
We have had numerous individuals here rise up from among all socioeconomic groups to love, teach and lead us, not because we as a people have a greater number of such individuals capable of doing great things. We do not. Pick the best and brightest of any foreign country and on an individual basis, they have those who are capable of achieving every advancement in knowledge and skill that individuals have achieved in this nation.
Our virtue is a collective virtue. We have individuals who rise up from among us to endow us with greatness because we as a people have determined that it is our collective responsibility that all individuals have available to them the opportunity to develop their full potential. It is through this virtue that many are rescued from the confines of their own circumstances.
It is not in the absence of government nor through its fullest manifestation that the balance of prevention and propagation are found. Take any current problem facing our nation- obesity, rising health care costs, drunk driving, gun violence, falling academic achievement, environmental degradation, deficit spending, etc. and when they become both a collective and an individual responsibility–they will be resolved.
Loren M. Lambert © October 26, 2015
Our virtue is a collective virtue. We have no individuals who have been dictators in the United States because we as a people have determined that it is our collective responsibility that no individual be allowed to act as a dictator over us. It is through this virtue that the many who are capable of such degradation are rescued from their own worst natures.
We have had numerous individuals here rise up from among all socioeconomic groups to love, teach and lead us, not because we as a people have a greater number of such individuals capable of doing great things. We do not. Pick the best and brightest of any foreign country and on an individual basis, they have those who are capable of achieving every advancement in knowledge and skill that individuals have achieved in this nation.
Our virtue is a collective virtue. We have individuals who rise up from among us to endow us with greatness because we as a people have determined that it is our collective responsibility that all individuals have available to them the opportunity to develop their full potential. It is through this virtue that many are rescued from the confines of their own circumstances.
It is not in the absence of government nor through its fullest manifestation that the balance of prevention and propagation are found. Take any current problem facing our nation- obesity, rising health care costs, drunk driving, gun violence, falling academic achievement, environmental degradation, deficit spending, etc. and when they become both a collective and an individual responsibility–they will be resolved.
Loren M. Lambert © October 26, 2015
Monday, October 26, 2015
Zombie Mosquitoes and The Art of Sitting Down
Joan Vernikos, PhD says we need to create and find opportunities to stand
up and sit down a lot, but to sit down slowly so we use our muscles. So I
guess Catholic Mass and musical chairs (except you have to move like a
zombie whilst doing it), makes a of sense but is it enough to convert?
Yes, who can make me a zombie out there, I'm taking applications. Maybe a
Catholic Priest Zombie? No, scratch that, a nun. No, no, no, just a nice
Catholic woman with good teeth, then I could take care of my first choice
and decide on the other one later. On second thought, that all sounds a
little, I don't know, perhaps a zombie mosquito I can swat. Are there
Zombie mosquitoes? That would be frightening.
Loren M. Lambert, October 16, 2015 ©
Loren M. Lambert, October 16, 2015 ©
Why You Should Care Because It's Not Fair - Worker's Compensation
I attended the Labor Commission's Worker's Comp seminar today. It was evident there, as in past conferences, that there is a patronizing, we-know-better, slow erosion of employees' right to adjudicate their disputes at the Labor Commission before a fair and impartial body. This is being done under the guise of the slogan that its the Labor Commission's mission to "return injured employees to work." Yeah, why not, that's what we want right? Get people back to work?
Let me demonstrate the problem this way. If you were charged with a crime and were innocent or less culpable and merited some mercy in sentencing, how would you feel about a court system that often held conferences and had as its slogan, "We put criminals in jail and throw away the key!" Yeah, why not, that's what we want right? For criminals to go to jail and never come out to cause more harm? (That is the reality also and that is why we have the highest incarceration rate in the world).
Or how about this: if you are an employer and suspected of polluting, how would you feel about an EPA that had as its slogan, "Protecting the environment at all costs!" Yeah, why not, that's what the EPA is there for, to protect the environment?
The problem is this. A governmental body that is supposed to act neutrally among competing obligations. Those obligations are created to balance the interests either between parties or between the government's enforcement of the law and the regulated party. When an agency elevates one interest or competing goal above the others and align its resources and personnel to achieve that particular goal, the agency becomes blinded to and insensitive of its broader obligations. This creates inequity.
As to Workers Compensation, it is not the mission of the Labor Commission to return injured workers to full time employment. That is the employees, medical professions' and vocational experts jobs. The Labor Commission's mission is to manage a liability system in a manner that equitably resolves the competing interests between the employer and the employee. Stated simply, that system is supposed to enforce, due to work place injuries, payment for the injured worker's medical expenses and to provide subsistence wage replacement while the injured employee cannot work due to his or her injuries.
So, you're still asking, what are the injustices that occur when all emphasis in a worker's compensation system of justice is placed on returning an employee to work? Here are a few.
1. The injured worker or his or her doctors' opinion that injuries prevent work is always suspect and presumptively viewed as wrong or even criminal.
2. Work Med and other "work injury medical" providers and their doctors who work for and are paid by the employer and worker's compensation insurance providers to provide both care for injured workers and opinions that minimize indemnity payments and cut off care, treatment choices, and wage benefits who determine return to work dates, limitations, restrictions and impairment ratings are economically and philosophically motivated to err in favor of "returning the employees to work," whether or not that is the correct thing to do. The consequences are many. The insurance doctors skimp on treatment and diagnostics forensics which would validate the employee's position on causation and extent of injury and in the absence thereof, do the opposite - deprive the employee of validation of his or her injuries and support the employer. The insurance doctors also skimp on treatment that thereby lead to poorer outcomes.
3. Work Med and other "work injury medical," providers and their doctors who work for and are paid by the employer and worker's compensation insurance providers to provide both care for injured workers and to provide opinions that cut off care or treatment choices, who determine return to work dates, limitations, restrictions and impairment ratings have an inherent conflict of interest to act in the best interest of their patients yet are allowed in Utah to provide defense medical evaluations on behalf of employers. As a consequence of this, work med doctors are insulated from medical malpractice claims when they fail to provide adequate care.
4. Employers have an incentive to disregard light duty restrictions and intimidate employees.
5. Medical Panels are empowered to assume roles outside of their expertise on vocational issues and to assume the ALJ's functions by making credibility assessments regarding: (1) the mechanisms of injury, (2) the relevance or weight to be given when there are no witnesses of an accident, (3) the claimant's reports of pain or symptoms and the effect they have, and (4) to resolved discrepancies in the medical records.
5. Legislatures and criminal justice systems gear up to criminalize and convict employees engaging in alleged acts of worker's compensation fraud but no countervailing laws are promulgated against employers, worker compensation carriers and insurance doctors who suppress work accident reports, falsify evidence, engage in deceptive practices, interfere with worker's compensation rights, etc.
6. Injured workers are treated by all players, except, at times their own attorneys, as suspect.
7. The Labor Commissioner and Appeals Counsel, without benefit of hearing the live testimony, are given discretion to act in a patronizing manner to overturn the ALJ decisions in favor of witnesses.
8. Subconscious and conscious biases against injured workers are magnified against minorities in ad hominen attacks that are rarely lodged against dominant groups. As an example, minorities are more often viewed as using the Worker's Compensation system as a retirement mechanism, when the only concern should be, do they qualify for their benefits based on the merits of their claim.
9. Medical providers who are viewed as employee friendly are excluded from participation in medical panels and advisory roles.
10. The Labor Commission becomes understaffed, creating backlogs that incentivize claimants to compromise their claims.
11. While it may err on the side of preventing unfounded claims, it more often errs on the side of denying claims that should be paid. As you may guess, the Worker's Compensation System and its insurers don't send agents to survey an employees who has been unfairly denied benefits. You never hear about them. You only hear about the horror stories supporting the employer's position.
In short, the working class of America is under siege and needs to agitate for its rights before they are all lost.
Loren M. Lambert, October 16, 2015 ©
Let me demonstrate the problem this way. If you were charged with a crime and were innocent or less culpable and merited some mercy in sentencing, how would you feel about a court system that often held conferences and had as its slogan, "We put criminals in jail and throw away the key!" Yeah, why not, that's what we want right? For criminals to go to jail and never come out to cause more harm? (That is the reality also and that is why we have the highest incarceration rate in the world).
Or how about this: if you are an employer and suspected of polluting, how would you feel about an EPA that had as its slogan, "Protecting the environment at all costs!" Yeah, why not, that's what the EPA is there for, to protect the environment?
The problem is this. A governmental body that is supposed to act neutrally among competing obligations. Those obligations are created to balance the interests either between parties or between the government's enforcement of the law and the regulated party. When an agency elevates one interest or competing goal above the others and align its resources and personnel to achieve that particular goal, the agency becomes blinded to and insensitive of its broader obligations. This creates inequity.
As to Workers Compensation, it is not the mission of the Labor Commission to return injured workers to full time employment. That is the employees, medical professions' and vocational experts jobs. The Labor Commission's mission is to manage a liability system in a manner that equitably resolves the competing interests between the employer and the employee. Stated simply, that system is supposed to enforce, due to work place injuries, payment for the injured worker's medical expenses and to provide subsistence wage replacement while the injured employee cannot work due to his or her injuries.
So, you're still asking, what are the injustices that occur when all emphasis in a worker's compensation system of justice is placed on returning an employee to work? Here are a few.
1. The injured worker or his or her doctors' opinion that injuries prevent work is always suspect and presumptively viewed as wrong or even criminal.
2. Work Med and other "work injury medical" providers and their doctors who work for and are paid by the employer and worker's compensation insurance providers to provide both care for injured workers and opinions that minimize indemnity payments and cut off care, treatment choices, and wage benefits who determine return to work dates, limitations, restrictions and impairment ratings are economically and philosophically motivated to err in favor of "returning the employees to work," whether or not that is the correct thing to do. The consequences are many. The insurance doctors skimp on treatment and diagnostics forensics which would validate the employee's position on causation and extent of injury and in the absence thereof, do the opposite - deprive the employee of validation of his or her injuries and support the employer. The insurance doctors also skimp on treatment that thereby lead to poorer outcomes.
3. Work Med and other "work injury medical," providers and their doctors who work for and are paid by the employer and worker's compensation insurance providers to provide both care for injured workers and to provide opinions that cut off care or treatment choices, who determine return to work dates, limitations, restrictions and impairment ratings have an inherent conflict of interest to act in the best interest of their patients yet are allowed in Utah to provide defense medical evaluations on behalf of employers. As a consequence of this, work med doctors are insulated from medical malpractice claims when they fail to provide adequate care.
4. Employers have an incentive to disregard light duty restrictions and intimidate employees.
5. Medical Panels are empowered to assume roles outside of their expertise on vocational issues and to assume the ALJ's functions by making credibility assessments regarding: (1) the mechanisms of injury, (2) the relevance or weight to be given when there are no witnesses of an accident, (3) the claimant's reports of pain or symptoms and the effect they have, and (4) to resolved discrepancies in the medical records.
5. Legislatures and criminal justice systems gear up to criminalize and convict employees engaging in alleged acts of worker's compensation fraud but no countervailing laws are promulgated against employers, worker compensation carriers and insurance doctors who suppress work accident reports, falsify evidence, engage in deceptive practices, interfere with worker's compensation rights, etc.
6. Injured workers are treated by all players, except, at times their own attorneys, as suspect.
7. The Labor Commissioner and Appeals Counsel, without benefit of hearing the live testimony, are given discretion to act in a patronizing manner to overturn the ALJ decisions in favor of witnesses.
8. Subconscious and conscious biases against injured workers are magnified against minorities in ad hominen attacks that are rarely lodged against dominant groups. As an example, minorities are more often viewed as using the Worker's Compensation system as a retirement mechanism, when the only concern should be, do they qualify for their benefits based on the merits of their claim.
9. Medical providers who are viewed as employee friendly are excluded from participation in medical panels and advisory roles.
10. The Labor Commission becomes understaffed, creating backlogs that incentivize claimants to compromise their claims.
11. While it may err on the side of preventing unfounded claims, it more often errs on the side of denying claims that should be paid. As you may guess, the Worker's Compensation System and its insurers don't send agents to survey an employees who has been unfairly denied benefits. You never hear about them. You only hear about the horror stories supporting the employer's position.
In short, the working class of America is under siege and needs to agitate for its rights before they are all lost.
Loren M. Lambert, October 16, 2015 ©
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Imputing the Tresspasses Of the Few Upon The Many
I heard a report of a 16-year-old Palestinian boy who was killed because he engaged in a single terrorist act. I learned he did this after he viewed a news report of Israeli police committing what he perceived to be an act of police brutality upon a Muslim woman by taking off her head cover. His father explained that his son exclaimed, "Look what those dirty Jews are doing to our women."
Did the father take a moment and explain to his son that judgment should be left to God and the legal system and that things aren't always what they seem at first glance? Did the father take a moment and explain to his son that even if what he perceived was actually what happened, that the insults, trespasses and offenses of a few cannot be attributed to an entire religion or race or people? Did the father take a moment and explain to his son that if what he perceived to have been wrong was actually what happened that they need to find ways to reach out to all people in both their worlds to bring justice and stop the few from besmirching the reputations of the group? Did the father take a moment and explain to his son that revenge leads to a blind and toothless world and never stops the cycle of violence?
No he did not. To the contrary, he doubled down on it and validated his son's anger. Now he has a dead son and a motive to seek revenge. They both are representatives of an endemic culture of hate, especially in the Middle East and throughout the world.
Sometimes it appears to me that the people in both sides of these conflicts cherish their hate and are more proud to have a dead son who is a martyr, than they are to have a live son who wants to end the cycle of violence and find peace and to have a world that is safe for everyone to live in.
You love that which you give your time, attention, money and heart to. Many in the Middle East have given so much of their time, attention, money and heart to their hate and desire for revenge that it would seem they love it above all else.
Know this, I do not write this as a condemnation, but an invitation to those that read to explore its truth. We all carry some little petty grudge or need for a bit of revenge. Find it and help end whatever cycle of violence you engage in and invite all to do the same.
Loren M. Lambert © October 14, 2015
Did the father take a moment and explain to his son that judgment should be left to God and the legal system and that things aren't always what they seem at first glance? Did the father take a moment and explain to his son that even if what he perceived was actually what happened, that the insults, trespasses and offenses of a few cannot be attributed to an entire religion or race or people? Did the father take a moment and explain to his son that if what he perceived to have been wrong was actually what happened that they need to find ways to reach out to all people in both their worlds to bring justice and stop the few from besmirching the reputations of the group? Did the father take a moment and explain to his son that revenge leads to a blind and toothless world and never stops the cycle of violence?
No he did not. To the contrary, he doubled down on it and validated his son's anger. Now he has a dead son and a motive to seek revenge. They both are representatives of an endemic culture of hate, especially in the Middle East and throughout the world.
Sometimes it appears to me that the people in both sides of these conflicts cherish their hate and are more proud to have a dead son who is a martyr, than they are to have a live son who wants to end the cycle of violence and find peace and to have a world that is safe for everyone to live in.
You love that which you give your time, attention, money and heart to. Many in the Middle East have given so much of their time, attention, money and heart to their hate and desire for revenge that it would seem they love it above all else.
Know this, I do not write this as a condemnation, but an invitation to those that read to explore its truth. We all carry some little petty grudge or need for a bit of revenge. Find it and help end whatever cycle of violence you engage in and invite all to do the same.
Loren M. Lambert © October 14, 2015
Monday, October 12, 2015
What Color Should the Toenails Be Painted On The Amputees Soon To Be Severed Leg?
When a leader and his tribe want to arrive at the same destination as you and your clan, it will take all of you to get there. Attacking the sincerity or zeal level of the tribe and its leader when there is a simple disagreement regarding the exact manner on how to get there is as intelligent as declining to purchase Alaska from the Russians because Sarah Pallin was going to be a Governor there and then be McCain’s running mate. It’s just stupid, clearly?
Sometimes you have to ignore the little squeak when it comes with the big train.
Sometimes you have to ignore the little squeak when it comes with the big train.
Friday, October 9, 2015
This is the Park
Canyon Rim Park
This is the park where, as a kid, on the edge of the wilderness, my Dad would come to swim in a spring-fed pond. This is the park where, when it remained a wilderness, I walked through it twice a day for seven years on my way to school. This is the park where, when it was an abandoned gravel pit, we road our bikes and busted our balls when our aerials caused us to bounce off our banana seats onto the bike’s steel frame.
This is the park where, when the pond had turned into a swamp, I could go look at salamanders and polliwogs and get slapped by Claudia P. for making her mom, our primary teacher, cry (I deserved it, best slap I ever got). This is the park where, when it was a wild wheat field, Scott P. would light it on fire and then pretend to help the fire fighters with a hose from his back yard. This is the park where, when it was half done and poorly managed, the bad boys of the neighborhood–one who went to prison, two who died young--hung and killed several cats--karma, especially cat karma cannot be run from.
This is the park where, when it was mostly a park with just a few wild places, Steve H. would go to make-out with Maria when he played hookie from church. This is the park where, when it had a pavilion, I would run and jump rope and pretend I was Rocky Balboa, where I had a silver bracelet a girl had gifted me fly off my wrist and sail perfectly into a thin crack in the cement under the pavilion where it could not be retrieved.
This is the park where I brought my toddlers to play while staying with my parents between leaving the military and buying a home. This is the park where I came to watch my son run cross country. This is the park that has so many of my memories that it seems like an old close friend that I can sit and reminisce with. This is the park where I want a portion of my ashes to be spread, with some saved for the Teton valley, and the rest into the Salmon River.
This is the park where a generation from now, when I am dead and gone, someone replacing the pavilion will find a stainless silver bracelet with my name engraved and he or she will then possess its power. Everyone should have a park like this.
Loren M. Lambert © Oct. 1, 2015.
Space, Solitude, Instinct and The Firmanfooplace
The Pfiefferhorn from Maybird Lake in Maybird Gulch
Many mammals, birds, reptiles and even some insects, while they form communities, will within those community disperse and create distance between nesting or breeding areas. Those communities increase proportionally to their population by maintaining that same distance as long as there is additional space to expand within. I suspect humans have that same instinct to disperse while staying within their expanding communities. However, under the pressure of high density populations, limited land mass and private property ownership, that instinct can only be satiated by travel or by ridiculously long climbs up rocky, muddy and treacherous mountains or death marches into wildernesses to seek the elusive sensation of solitude, space and first-human-foot-in-this-place sensation or what is commonly known as firmanfooplace. And that’s what we found today, firmanfooplace, even if that illusion was momentarily broken when the wiry bearded guy lapped us and the father and two kids mocked us with their light nimble steps.
Get your firmanfooplace where and when you can, and thereby give that instinct for distance its space at the firmanfooplace.
Loren M. Lambert © October 2, 2015
Me Thinks Thou Dost Protest Too Much
Every time there is a shooting, the far right wingnuts trot out the same old BS that the right to own a gun is the same the as the right to freedom of speech.
You see, no matter how batshit crazy you are, while I'll protect and fight for your right to shoot off your mouth at whomever you like in your exercise of free speech, the Right's wingnuts will fight and protect your right to acquire and shoot off your guns at whomever you like.
It just may be probable that those who immediately launch into an irrelevant, emotional whine when it is suggested that the mentally ill who have paranoia and homocidal ideation should not possess guns could very well be paranoid, homocidal gun owners who would stand to lose under such a policy.
There is no other rational explanation to protest such a rule.
You see, no matter how batshit crazy you are, while I'll protect and fight for your right to shoot off your mouth at whomever you like in your exercise of free speech, the Right's wingnuts will fight and protect your right to acquire and shoot off your guns at whomever you like.
It just may be probable that those who immediately launch into an irrelevant, emotional whine when it is suggested that the mentally ill who have paranoia and homocidal ideation should not possess guns could very well be paranoid, homocidal gun owners who would stand to lose under such a policy.
There is no other rational explanation to protest such a rule.
Towering Giants
The other day I was starting to dress for my workout at VASA gym and in walked a gym rat, loaded up with muscle upon muscle. I got the feeling that Jupiter had just rolled in past the moon.
There are those of us who stay in shape and can sing a bit, have some athleticism and some ability to swim with some efficiency, play a sport with palatable ability and throw a few weights around, etc. And then there are these towering giants who just amaze me. This guy didn’t even seem human. I felt like I was looking at some new species.
I’m at a point in life where I no longer anguish over the fact that I’m not a strapping, musclebound Dynamo, but I still have to admire the possibilities.
It makes me wonder what it feels like to be in those bodies? So, all you towering giants out there, how does it feel? Since I’ll never be there, I have to hear it from others.
Loren M. Lambert, October 4, 2015 ©.
There are those of us who stay in shape and can sing a bit, have some athleticism and some ability to swim with some efficiency, play a sport with palatable ability and throw a few weights around, etc. And then there are these towering giants who just amaze me. This guy didn’t even seem human. I felt like I was looking at some new species.
I’m at a point in life where I no longer anguish over the fact that I’m not a strapping, musclebound Dynamo, but I still have to admire the possibilities.
It makes me wonder what it feels like to be in those bodies? So, all you towering giants out there, how does it feel? Since I’ll never be there, I have to hear it from others.
Loren M. Lambert, October 4, 2015 ©.
The Trilemma or More, of Actors Who Are Day Players and One Liners In A Small Market -- And Why I Still Love the Challenge
As a local actor, to get cast in anything that pays is exponentially challenging.
Usually, you have to be a member of good standing (by appearances or for realzies) of the correct religion, you have to have the right friends/acting coach/agent. You have to be a member of the right political party. You have to look 100% the part in every aspect from the last hair on your head to the soles of your shoes. You have to be the epitome of the person everyone in the production wants to hang out with. You have to have never had a single even slightly misunderstood moment or momentary lapse in whatever may possibly be deemed to reveal a flaw in your personality. You have to have all skills mastered in an actors repertoire (sing, dance, juggle, swear, paddle a canoe, slay a dragon, tip a cow and change a diaper, etc.). You have to never do or say or present anything at an audition that makes you less perfect than one of the other dozens auditioning for the same part. And, finally, you have to be a great actor.
And many times you don't know what is the correct religion (but here in Utah, usually you do), who are the right friends or coach or agent, what is the right political party, how to exactly look and act the part, what is the epitome of buddyhood and perfection, and nobody will ever tell you what you need to do to be perfect for them to consider casting you.
Yet, if you make it to the big time, nobody cares what your religion is, who your friends/acting coach/agent are or what political party you belong to. You're given leeway to become the character. You are the epitome of the person everyone wants to hang out with whether true or not. You are allowed to have a few moments of human imperfection, you can be less than the perfect vision of the character at the audition. You will be assisted in what to do more perfectly, and, while being a great actor is good, being an interesting actor people want to see, is better.
Despite all this, I love acting--its challenges, and its window into all aspects of human achievement and endeavor--and that is what it can be if you approach it correctly. Just forgive me for being human, give me room to show you that I am both able enough and humble enough to learn, grow, and earn your respect and your casting call.
Yet wouldn't it be fun to be one of the Stars.
Loren M. Lambert, October 7, 2015 ©.
Usually, you have to be a member of good standing (by appearances or for realzies) of the correct religion, you have to have the right friends/acting coach/agent. You have to be a member of the right political party. You have to look 100% the part in every aspect from the last hair on your head to the soles of your shoes. You have to be the epitome of the person everyone in the production wants to hang out with. You have to have never had a single even slightly misunderstood moment or momentary lapse in whatever may possibly be deemed to reveal a flaw in your personality. You have to have all skills mastered in an actors repertoire (sing, dance, juggle, swear, paddle a canoe, slay a dragon, tip a cow and change a diaper, etc.). You have to never do or say or present anything at an audition that makes you less perfect than one of the other dozens auditioning for the same part. And, finally, you have to be a great actor.
And many times you don't know what is the correct religion (but here in Utah, usually you do), who are the right friends or coach or agent, what is the right political party, how to exactly look and act the part, what is the epitome of buddyhood and perfection, and nobody will ever tell you what you need to do to be perfect for them to consider casting you.
Yet, if you make it to the big time, nobody cares what your religion is, who your friends/acting coach/agent are or what political party you belong to. You're given leeway to become the character. You are the epitome of the person everyone wants to hang out with whether true or not. You are allowed to have a few moments of human imperfection, you can be less than the perfect vision of the character at the audition. You will be assisted in what to do more perfectly, and, while being a great actor is good, being an interesting actor people want to see, is better.
Despite all this, I love acting--its challenges, and its window into all aspects of human achievement and endeavor--and that is what it can be if you approach it correctly. Just forgive me for being human, give me room to show you that I am both able enough and humble enough to learn, grow, and earn your respect and your casting call.
Yet wouldn't it be fun to be one of the Stars.
Loren M. Lambert, October 7, 2015 ©.
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