Poor Aaron Rodgers!

I'm no Green Bay Packer fan.

And I save real sympathy for folks who are truly suffering. Generally speaking, the travails of being a professional athlete in America don't qualify for that rank.

But in that little corner of the brain reserved for emotions devoted to the trivialities of spectator sports, I've gotta feel some of the pain of Packer quarterback Aaron Rodgers.

He was drafted late in the tenure of the most beloved Packer of a generation, Brett Favre. His mere presence was a prod to the team's faithful that time was running out for their active love affair with the former MVP and Super Bowl winning QB. Favre himself didn't seem to want that kind of prod: asked whether he would mentor the rookie who was clearly brought in to replace him somewhere down the line, Favre said that mentoring wasn't his job. Favre kept playing, Rodgers was the quiet understudy, and it was clear that that status would remain quo as long as Favre wanted it to.

Favre retired this offseason, apparently kicking off the Rodgers era. Then, even before training camp or any opportunity for Packer backers to miss him, Favre seemed to have second thoughts, commenting publicly that he'd consider unretiring if the Packers needed him because of a Rodgers injury. How Favre could fail to see the tackiness of that kind of comment is a mystery: the prospect will certainly cause at least some Packer fans to wish and hope for Rodgers to get hurt just enough for the Brett cavalry to come riding to the rescue, and at least a few of those folks will be expressing those wishes and hopes every time Rodgers is slow to get up from a sack. Rodgers is a big boy and has already been made a rich man to put up with just that kind of aggravation, but that doesn't excuse Favre's lack of professional courtesy in exposing him to an extra helping of it.

And as if that wasn't enough, the Packers went to the second round of this weekend's NFL draft and drafted another quarterback, Louisville's Brian Brohm. It's one thing for a team to start looking for your replacement when you're 35, and been on the job for 13 seasons, but it's something else altogether when you're 24 and haven't even been tried out for a full season yet. The Packers say they drafted Brohm to be a backup, but second round picks are generally too important to be spent on guys unless those guys are going to play. Brett Favre was a second round draft pick. So when Rodgers has an off play or two, and he doesn't look hurt enough for Favre to be called back to save the team, fans are gonna be thinking that they have a promising young QB standing on the sidelines who should be given a chance. Again, Rodgers is being well paid to endure ill wishes and fond hopes for other guys. I just imagine that it's no fun to be overshadowed by your predecessor, and while you're still living in that shadow, have to be overshadowed by your successor.

Maybe Prince Charles can send him an encouraging text message?

How To Bring The Family Together?

The commercial has a familiar theme and set up.

Mom says to the kids, "See ya later," and each of the kids, like caricatures of busy executives, rattles off the intense afternoon schedules that will make getting together later undoable. The littleist kid says that she can move some things around to make a 3:45 get-together possible.

Cute. Innocuous. Mom will see that they're doing the scheduled, fragmented life too much, and she's going to put a stop to it. We're going to be sold something that promotes family togetherness. I was suspecting some sort of quick, easy comfort food: mom could say, "There's always time for X," and X would be a convenient and irresistible breakfast item. Or soup.

I wasn't expecting what the product turned out to be.

A new model of flat-screen TV, from Panasonic.

After we see the product, we see the whole family sitting down in front of the new screen, all smiling together at the same program.

I think we've passed some sort of milestone here.

I remember a campaign for one new season of ABC's fall programming; the concept was that you should watch more TV because it was good for you. And it was obviously tongue-in-cheek. We all knew that TV wasn't good for you, and it was funny for a TV network to make the Joe Isuzu-ish claim that it was.

But there was no evidence that this Panasonic ad was meant to be funny at all. The idea that a busy family can be pulled from its hectic routines by the warm, fuzzy glow of a new TV is apparently to be taken completely at face value. "Bring your family together with television!" I might have expected that in 1951, but now?

Maybe we're supposed to be taken by the charming naivete of the suggestion that a husband, wife, and three kids ranging from toddler to teen would all find suitable entertainment on a single screen rather than scattering to their respective satellite niches, video games, DVDs, chat rooms and text messaging.

The Monkey's Paw vs. My Super Sweet 16

Somewhere around fifth grade, my class was assigned to read a short story called The Monkey's Paw. If I learned at the time that the story was written by English author W. W. Jacobs and published in 1902, I forgot those facts pretty quickly.

What I did not forget was the essence of the story. A mother, father and son come into possession of a monkey's paw, said to be enchanted with a spell that would allow three wishes to be granted merely by grasping the paw and speaking them aloud. After being warned by the paw's previous possessor not to mess around with it, the family wishes for a specific sum of cash. The next day, the mother and father are waiting for the son to come home from work, and the person who comes to the door instead is a visitor from the son's employer. He brings bad news: the son has been killed on the job, mangled in machinery. The visitor also brings compensation from the employer: the exact sum of money the family had wished for the previous day. After a few days, the mother and father use the second wish to wish the son alive again. Late that night, there is a knock at the door. Mother rushes for the door, assuming that it is the son returned to life. Father, mindful of the fact that the son had been mangled beyond recognition and horrified at the thought of what the reanimated body might look like, rushes for the paw and uses the third and final wish to wish the son gone for good before his wife can open that door.

As grade schoolers whose lives and times included heavy doses of Dark Shadows on weekday afternoons, Christopher Lee Dracula movies on Saturday afternoons, and Creature Features on Saturday nights, our discussions of The Monkey's Paw focused on its supernatural aspects. Did the wishing actually work, or did the family suffer a single, tragic coincidence that they inflated into an irrational belief in the paw's magic? If the paw really did work, could they have headed off future trouble by making the first wish for unlimited wishes?

But another aspect of the story lurked around in my subconscious and popped up several years later, in college. A bunch of us were killing the hours between dinner and late Saturday night partying in the dorm TV lounge, watching Fantasy Island.

(Don't get smug: the show was on for years, so some of you had to be out there watching it, too. And if not you, somebody you know.)

I don't remember the details of the episode at all; I just remember that the moral of the three stories that made up the hour was that you shouldn't go around wishing for wealth or fame or glory or status, because all that stuff brings with it problems that you can't imagine, so you're better off making the best of whatever it is that you have.

A light bulb clicked on. "Hey, that was the real message of The Monkey's Paw!" Plenty of folks in the TV lounge at the time had read the story, had it read to them, or were familiar with some variation of it. And it wasn't hard for us to think of other times we'd seen reinforcements of the "You're Better Off Staying In Your Place" message. Gershwin's "I Got Plenty O' Nuttin'" from Porgy and Bess was an obvious example. There was special scorn for the Florida Evans character from the TV series Good Times: "Ohhhh, Jaaaames! We don't need money for food if we have to get it by doing a commercial for floor wax that I don't think is the best!"

You don't want the kind of troubles that go along with wealth. Trying to get rich is going to bring you misery. You can find happiness and true nobility in the humble surroundings that are right where you are.

We weren't conspiracy theorists, and didn't decide that the omnipresence of those messages was Official Trilateral Commission One World Policy. But on the other hand, it didn't seem like random coincidence, either. It occurred to us that maybe the sort of people who approved the short story compilations on grade school reading lists and gave the green light to television scripts and movie musicals might have thought that those were fine, noncontroversial messages to spread through mass media. It also occurred to us that those people might not have been so willing to spread messages showing the happy results of overt ambition in the lower classes.

Monkey's Paw messages seem a bit harder to find these days; there doesn't seem to be a whole lot out there to tell us how great it is to be of humble station. Every now and then, some rapper or singer will let us know that it's tough to have to deal with the haters. But they've generally spent more time telling us exactly why they're getting the hate: they're not skimping on the details about the magnitude of the lives they live.

And that's the more common message in today's America. 'Tis better to live large, and to show everybody every millimeter of that largeness. As a shining example, there is MTV's My Super Sweet 16, which demonstrates just how far out of hand things can get when parents with fat wallets decide to indulge their kids with 16th birthday celebrations. Some human abilities, like the ability to learn new languages, are best developed in early childhood, so if you are above the age of consent, have ever needed to hold a job, and haven't seen the show, it's probably too late for you to develop the talent to imagine the ways the kids on the show use mommy and daddy's money to buy attention and indulgences previously known only to royalty.

Youngsters watching the show aren't being told that it's best to be satisfied with what you have. Nor do they see quaint, 1980s, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous-era wonder at the abundance the birthday kids get to wallow in. No, the moral of the story doesn't seem to be that they have lots of nice stuff and enjoy it all; it's that things won't be sufficiently fun for them if they don't get to emphasize how much they have, how important they are, and how different that makes them from everybody else. The birthday kids are notably sensitive about the preservation of the exclusivity of their largeness. The typical show subject is hyper-concerned about the making of the guest list, about ensuring that there is enough security to keep the uninvited from crashing, and about keeping the invited guests from overshadowing her entrance, stepping on her stage, or trying to share her spotlight. If any of these kids is ever pressed into service as a monarch, they've got the attitude down.

The behavior of the Super Sweet 16 teens is only natural, given the culture they've grown up in. They've heard rappers bragging about the brands they wear, carry, drive and drink, and they've gotten visual confirmation of the nature of large living from entertainers and athletes on MTV Cribs. "Diva" behavior is good, shopping is an end, not a means to an end, and the government encourages citizens to spend rather than save. Telephones aren't functional tools that last for decades, they're fashion accessories that require replacement every other year for lack of stylishness.

Somewhere, in that wide space between random happenstance and coordinated plot, the message minders seem to have abandoned the "Be Content Where You Are" idea and replaced it with something closer to "You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Is Jealous Of You." It's easy to be horrified at the direction that mindset takes us. But in this case, pining away for the old days isn't quite right, either; they were just as rotten in the opposite direction.

Isn't there a happy medium? Can't we have some "up from poverty, made it big, stayed modest, lived happily ever after" stories to show our kids?

Our Founding Fathers -- And Their Underemphasized Legacy

What was really so special about America's Founding Fathers?

Washington's integrity? Franklin's worldly ingenuity? Jefferson's brilliance? Madison's visionary statesmanship?

All of the above, right? American folklore tells us that the Founding Fathers were giants among men, the most Alpha of Alpha males. We've distilled their best characteristics down to a simple archetype, one easily found on display in the form of the John Wayne character in at least a dozen movies. You know the character: bigger, stronger, tougher, smarter (practical smarts, not that egghead book-learning stuff) and more righteous than anybody else.

That self-image neglects one of the most significant characteristics of the Founding Fathers and the legacy they established for us, though. And that characteristic is the ability to recognize what Benjamin Franklin told the Continental Congress just prior to the signing of the Declaration of Independence: "We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately."

We don't know, and can't prove whether Washington was more brave than Kosciuszko, or whether Madison was a more enlightened thinker on the subject of people and their relationship to government than was Rousseau. But we can judge the Founding Fathers objectively on one item of evidence that demonstrates that in the measure of the concept identified by Franklin's words, they were men ahead of their time.

In the 18th century, position at or near the head of a nation wasn't something that you politely handed over to someone you neither fathered nor chose. Wars of succession were the order of the day, and in the generations immediately preceding the American revolution, such wars were fought in Spain and Prussia. Catherine the Great came to power in Russia via a coup that ousted her husband, and violent overthrows of heads of state wouldn't go out of style there for more than a hundred years. England had exiled a king, James II, in 1688, and in 1745, his grandson, Bonnie Prince Charlie, was still leading armies into battle on English soil to try to restore their male line to the throne.

As for France, the perception of insufficient devotion to the cause led to the imprisonment and exile of one of the revolution's fathers, Lafayatte, and the execution of two others, Danton and Robespierre. The resulting chaos allowed an opportunistic and charismatic military leader to take advantage, and General Napoleon Bonaparte became Emperor Napoleon I.

There were no such happenings in America. Though there was some support for an expansive executive role in American federal government, the historical evidence does not suggest that George Washington actively attempted any power grabbing before or after taking office, and he willingly stepped aside at the conclusion of his second term as head of state, though he surely could have held power longer.

John Adams was no fan of Thomas Jefferson or of Jefferson's politics. Adams promoted the passing of the Alien and Sedition Acts, which allowed his government to harass and intimidate political opponents. But Adams' use of governmental power against those opponents stopped far short of the global norms of the day, and when Jefferson defeated him in the election of 1800, Adams didn't fight the result, he went home to Massachusetts.

In fact, whatever might be said about the various forms of legal and political chicanery that have impacted American presidential elections, it still must also be said that transfers of the powers of the head of state in this country have always been peaceful. To date, no one has taken that power by taking up arms against the incumbent holder.

The other nations that can make the same claim do not readily come to mind. In a world of deposed monarchs and wannabe emperors, and in a world whose future held plenty of Duces, Presidents for Life and Generalissimos, our Founding Fathers recognized that establishing and playing by orderly power transfer rules was more important than keeping power for themselves and their allies.

In today's world, the idea of winning by any means necessary seems to have been elevated to the pantheon of true-blue, inherently American ideals. But it ain't so. Our Founding Fathers realized the truth of what Ben Franklin was telling them: even when you are in direct competition with your neighbor, there are times when your own interests are better served by watching his back than by stabbing him in it.

We may just be in one of those periods right about now.

You Do Not Want This Car

This is the 2009 Dodge Challenger SRT8.

As a public service, I am warning you that this is a car that you do not want.

As some of you may remember and others of you may have seen or read, Dodge previously produced a model called the Challenger that looked a great deal like this one. The 1970 version of the car has been said to be the inspiration for the new model.

Which should serve as an alarm bell for careful automotive shoppers. The 1970 example of the Challenger was a typical example of what was known at the time as a "muscle car." For those who are not aware, "muscle cars" were created by throwing big, powerful engines into small and/or stripped down bodies. Muscle cars were not created by upgrading the suspensions or brakes of those bodies as much as they should have been. Which meant that muscle cars were notoriously indifferent to even urgent requests to stop or turn. Is that the kind of vehicle you want as inspiration for a car you buy in 2008?

And let's not so quickly bypass the supposedly positive feature of the muscle car: the big, powerful engine. 425 horsepower isn't as practical now as it was then. The lower speed limits and greater congestion of today's America make for very few opportunities to use any more engine than a nice, sensible four-cylinder provides. And even though engines are more efficient than those of 35 years ago, the Hemi powerplant of today's Challenger still guzzles quite a bit of gasoline. That might have been fine and dandy when gas cost less than .40 a gallon and we thought we could pump oil out of the ground indefinitely, but now that prices are closer to 4.00 and peak oil is rearing its ugly head, who can afford to be so irresponsible?

"I can," you say?

You must be of the sort who went around throwing money at vintage Challengers and Barracudas and Chargers and Road Runners in the last twenty years, driving up the demand and prices so much that folks of modest means couldn't afford to buy a reasonably priced example.

Or so I hear.

But even if you can afford to disregard the cost considerations, think of the style statement you would be making with the purchase of this car. Let's say you were born in 1954 or before, which would have made you old enough to have driven a Challenger in its original incarnation. If you didn't have one then, a purchase of this one will make you look as if you are trying to claim coolness you lacked at the time.

If, on the other hand, you did drive one then, buying this one will make you look like your current life isn't decent enough for you to let go of the early 1970s. I will leave it to you to decide which image is more pathetic. Neither is what you want to look like.

Nor do you want the image you'll have if you were born too late to have even remembered the original Challenger: say, any time from about 1968 on. Since I'm doing a public service here, I'll go ahead and spell out what that image is: POSEUR. What do you know about Challengers, or muscle cars at all? Whatever it is, it's after the fact and/or second hand. How would you look driving a Challenger? About the same as you'd look wearing a letterman's jacket when you weren't on the team. Or wearing a captain's cap when you aren't in the navy, don't own a yacht, and aren't married to Toni Tennille. Do you even know who Toni Tennille is? Well, if you didn't hear her on AM radio or see her on VHF television, you have no business buying a Challenger. Save yourself some embarrassment and stay away from your local Dodge dealer, unless you're shopping for an iconic name that doesn't look anything at all like its predecessor: the Charger. Help yourself to all the Vipers and Caravans you want.

In fact, there's an entire automotive brand for your demographic. It's called Scion, and I'm sure their dealers will be happy to see you coming. But take it from me: the Challenger is not for you.

When was I born?

What difference does that make? We're trying to help you out here.

Now, I hope that these magnanimous and unselfish words of warning are heeded. And one of these days, I may just check to see that they are. So in passing by some random Dodge dealer, on my way somewhere else, of course, when I take a brief glance to see what is sitting around on the lot, I will expect to see vast stocks of unsold and unwanted Hemi-engined Challengers. Especially in orange. Dodge may recognize that if it is to truly wallow in the degradation that is retro nostalgia styling, it must also offer the Challenger in the color once known as Plum Crazy; if it does, I expect to see even more of those on their lots.

That is all.

No need to thank me.

[Photo from Dodge.com. Nothing to see there.]

The Stages Of Life -- In Food Terms

1. Can He Chew It? (Parental Concern)

Teeth check in, and with them, the ability to handle solid food.

2. Will I Like It?

For a kid, the potential for trauma lurks behind every meal. "You're gonna sit there until you eat everything on that plate." "I didn't pay good money for you to waste that food." "Don't you know that children in (insert Third World reference here) are starving for that food?" It's why the Happy Meal is so happy -- you know it, you like it, and they give you a toy to boot.

3. Can I Afford It?

You grow up, you get the autonomy to eat pizza all day every day if you want to. The rub: you need to assemble five other guys to go in with you to order one.

4. Will It Make Me Fat?

You can afford to make the move from subsistence eating to recreational eating. But you're realizing that there suddenly aren't enough calorie-burning opportunities in a day to manage equilibrium entirely on the output side. More and more frequently, there's food you like and can pay for, but you still turn down.

5. Can I Digest It?

You knew that Jerry Seinfeld's parents and the other seniors at the Del Boca Vista retirement home thought that 6 was an absurdly late hour for dinner, but there was an element to the joke that you didn't quite get. Until you started to realize that an ill-timed, excessively ambitious meal could be enjoyable for an hour, then a far bigger nuisance for twelve. Midnight steak? When it means trying to sleep on a bowling ball, no thanks.

6. Can I Chew It?

Teeth check out, and with them, the ability to handle solid food.


If you live in a locale where the traditional late night/early morning on the way home meal is a stop at a 24-hour White Castle, rest assured that when you're in the drive-through line at 3 a.m., that's not me in front of you.