Swickard: A funny thing happened in line

© 2017 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.  Many years ago, I was standing in a line at the university. It was the usual kind of line that college students stand and have stood in since the beginning of time.
            No one was speaking, each barricaded in their own world, secretly wishing the other people would have heart attacks so they could step over the fallen bodies to the head of the line. No matter what happens to our world, we will still have lines to stand in.
            Someone walked up, looked carefully at a piece of paper and then looked worriedly at the sign in front of the line. He started to leave, wavered, almost spoke aloud. He was fearful of being in the wrong line.
            At last, with an air of resignation, he stuck the paper in his pocket, sighed heavily and stepped into line; having decided it was the wrong line but he was going to have to go to the front of this line to find out which line he should have been standing in.
            I turned to him and said, “I wouldn’t mind lines so much if it wasn’t for all the waiting.”
            The effect on the people in line was immediate. Most smiled. I also smiled. Like the air rushing out of a balloon, the tension in the line vanished and people started talking to each other.
            You cannot stand in line with people who are on edge, ill-tempered and full of anger without it affecting you. Likewise, if person after person steps to the front of the line full of bile, it rubs off on the people behind the window until they are surly.
            Sooner than later, they hand that mouthful of bile right back to someone in the line forming a very destructive cycle.
            The way out is to talk to the people around you. Try a little humor if you like. Something like:
            I hear Governor Martinez just flew in from Santa Fe, I’ll bet her arms are tired. Or, how many psychology students does it take to change a light bulb? One, but the bulb has to want to change.
            You can just speak to the people in a friendly manner. You will be surprised how much better you both feel. While it is true that all workers should be nice to us regardless of how they are treated, the way it works is simply: the nicer you are, the better your chance to succeed in getting what you want.
            Seriously, when standing in any line to pay bills, get loans, buy stamps, ask simple questions, ask hard questions, ask unanswerable questions; whatever you are doing in lines, take your humor with you. Be gentle, I may be in the same line.
            Also, if you can’t bring yourself to laugh, at least smile, when you hear: I understand the Aggie football team is so tough that when they play horseshoes, they don’t even bother taking the shoes off of the horses.
            That will move the line right along.

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Swickard: In praise of dabblers

© 2017 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.   Working smart is a mainstay of our country. I sometimes find people who I call “Dabblers” able to work smart in many different endeavors. My uncle Ralph and my Grandfather McKim were both dabblers of many different abilities to fix things.

            A hallmark of a great dabbler is not being entirely into a college career. Rather, it is the ability and inclination to take on an impressive array of jobs and do each one well. These people are not usually experts but they are completely competent in many areas.
            Myself, I’m competent at most home and auto repairs. But what I really know is when to call in someone who can fix whatever I’m working on. This last week I ran into a dabbler extraordinaire who amazed me with his abilities.
            The way this came about is that my uncle that I took care of many years until his passing in 2015 built his house in 1959. He had a 1934 Plymouth Coupe that he drove occasionally. The house was done in September and he parked the Plymouth in the garage. One of his friends helped him take the engine out to rebuild it. They disassembled the car.
            Then it happened, his mechanic friend was suddenly transferred by his job to the East Coast. Said Plymouth sat all these years awaiting a new mechanic. My uncle never reassembled the car.
            The dabbler this week bought the car from my uncle’s estate. We had to get it out of the garage. My uncle was from the Great Depression and didn’t throw anything away in all those years. Even plastic spoons. We carefully cleaned out the garage and loaded the car body on a trailer along with boxes and boxes of parts.
            This dabbler mechanic knew instantly every bolt, nut and piece of the car. He was able to mentally reassemble it in his mind. The real reassemble at his place will take a long time.
            We need the next generation of kids to learn how to dabble in many areas of fixing stuff. We have enough people who can sit and pass paper back and forth. We will need the next generation to have dabblers who can look at things that break in a house or car and fix them.
            For me it was taking three years of shop when I was in public school. No longer is shop a core curriculum and our society and students are missing out. In my three years I learned woodworking, electronics repair, automotive repair, welding and using tools.
            Shop needs to return to our public schools for every student. Boys and girls. Make all of them handy and then let them sort out what needs to be fixed. For every person who looks at the stars we need someone who can look at the biffy and know how to get it working again.
            Our society has a bountiful amount of goods but someone (dabblers) must be encouraged to learn how to fix these things.

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Swickard: We need real driving tests

© 2017 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.   One great adventure is driving. From sitting safely in your home within seconds we can be at the edge of death. Just seconds. Turn the key and away we go. Most of the time we are fine.
            Our society has a blind spot. There are people who should not be driving. It is not that they cannot drive down a road. It’s they cannot deal with emergencies.
            After one large and three small driving issues, I took the keys away from an older relative. He was unhappy but that’s my job. Then I would see him out in the second car trying to start it.
            Nope, I fixed the car since he no longer had a driver’s license. He’d say, “I think I can still drive the car.” I would reply, “That car will take you right to the scene of the accident and you will be there ten minutes before the police. That gives you ten minutes to think of a reason why you are driving without a license.”
            He didn’t like it but saw the humor. Truthfully, he could drive but he was unable to deal with emergency situations. We owe our older citizens to take the keys away before a wreck.
            More so, we don’t test this aspect of driving. When renewing a license there’s no test to check those skills. In flying there is and it should be something we do with driving.
            Likewise, there is the notion that someone can drink and drive providing it isn’t past a limit. However, “Buzzed driving is drunk driving” means any impairment is potentially fatal.
            We talk a good game of safety but we don’t play the game. Example: I was standing in line and a person was describing that they had their sixth accident that year. Yikes! Why does that person have a driver’s license?
            Yes, we hear often of drivers driving on suspended licenses. The consequences of violating the law must be robust enough to stop all but the most egregious offenders and those we will have to incarcerate for our own safety.
            Are we going to get serious about safety or is it such a good living for the accident lawyers and undertakers? We need to have driving academies for anyone in an accident whither our fault or not. And, for everyone we need rigorous driving tests every two years. This needs to be not just for commercial drivers but for all drivers.
            Our society must take away the driving privileges of those people no longer able to deal with emergencies. It is not good enough to get the car in gear, like flying, every two years we must recertify our ability to deal with life or death driving situations.
            Yes, I know my license to drive will most likely be taken from me some day. Shuckins. But it is better safe than sorry. It would be nice if it was the driving tests that show my inability to handle emergencies rather than a real emergency.

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It's just a game

© 2016 Jim Spence - Let’s play a game. The game is called: “Let’s try to guess what the Democrats will say.” We begin with a theoretical headline news story:
TRUMP EXTENDS FBI DIRECTOR COMEY’S TERM TWO YEARS.
Now, given that headline, predict what Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer would say about this announcement.
My best guess is Schumer would immediately call a press conference and say he is, "appalled.” The reason why this is a good guess is simple. This is exactly what Schumer said about Director Comey six months ago. Schumer did so immediately after Comey announced he had reopened the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails. Comey did this less than two weeks from Election Day.
Perhaps Schumer would add, "I said I did not have confidence in Comey six months ago, and I still don’t!”
Again, I am guessing he would say these things because he said them in early November of 2016.
It would be a good guess to predict that Schumer would also say, “If Comey wasn’t there, we would have won,” just as Schumer did as recently as late March of this year…...two months ago.
Ok, you can post your guess as to what Schumer and the Democrats would say if Trump had extended Comey’s term in our comments section.
Now let’s try this headline: TRUMP FIRES FBI DIRECTOR COMEY
Strangely enough, this is today’s headline. No, Trump did not extend Comey’s term, which would have drawn the ire of one Chuck Schumer. Instead Trump fired Comey, which get this…….also drew the ire of one Chuck Schumer.
So what did Chuck Schumer "say" after Trump fired someone that Schumer has lambasted for six months (along with every other Democrat)? Schumer called for a press briefing and defended Comey. Instead of re-affirming his condemnations of Comey and thanking Trump for finally canning the troll, Schumer had the gall to say he saw a, "deeply troubling pattern" by the Trump team.
Chuck Schumer is mindful of the accountant who is applying for a job at a shady company with a well-deserved reputation for cooking books. The CEO asks the applicant, “What does 2 + 2 equal?” The applicant leans forward and winks as he looks the CEO straight in the eye. He responds, “What do you want it to equal?”
This is what Chuck Schumer does 24-7. He looks the cameras right in the eye and willingly contradicts things he said quite emphatically not long ago. This is true of what he said of the nuclear option for filibusters, which Schumer has argued for and against with equal moral outrage, along with countless other situations where he says up is down, on is off, go is stop, wet is dry, and cold is hot.
Don’t look for ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, or most of the local daily newspapers in the country to point out what a shameless liar Schumer is. They don’t have a problem with it. If you watch Democrats in the press, you realize what they are really saying is James Comey should only be fired……if Republicans won’t fire him. If Republicans do fire him, that is wrong too. They will do this even though they will also with equal faux sincerity say, Comey cost them the election.
Go figure how a guy like Schumer can win easily. Yes, you guessed it. He lives in deep blue New York with the Clintons.
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Swickard: When technology breaks suddenly

© 2017 Michael Swickard, Ph.D.   Early in life I learned how technology can let us down. It was my seventh birthday and I had lobbied desperately for a drum without much hope considering the look on my mother’s face.
            So, my Uncle Gene bought me a guitar for my birthday. When I opened the package my mother and I said simultaneously, “Oh my God!”
            It wasn’t a real guitar, rather, it had a crank which when turned played the tune “Oh Susanna.” This was before anyone with that name became the Governor of New Mexico.
            I turned the crank and the song was a hit. Uncle Gene had a big smile, even when my mother, while bringing him hot coffee, accidentally spilled it on him.
            I played the song again, and again. Then I decided to sing and even added some yodeling and a few yips. I was Johnny One Song all day long. My parents looked a little frayed.
            Then it was time to say my prayers, brush my teeth and go to bed. I played the song one last time for my mother as she tucked me in. What a present!
            Next morning, I jumped up, grabbed the guitar and turned the crank. No sound came out. The technological wonder broke while I was asleep. I was crestfallen. My uncle looked glum.
            I asked him, “Can you fix this?” He looked at my mother and then slowly shook his head. We all called him Uncle Genius, and I immediately knew that if he couldn’t fix it, heck, it was broken for good since he was an electrical engineer.
            I’ll admit I suspected that one of the grown-ups had some hand in the guitar not working, so I asked my mother if she or my dad had been playing “Old Susanna” on my guitar after I went to sleep. Her expression wavered between hysteria and alarm.
            She firmly stated that no one had been playing “Oh Susanna.” That meant I was forced to accept that the guitar broke on its own. Over the years other technological wonders have broken and they have broken at the most inconvenient times. In fact, I have come to expect it.
            We don’t know when our technology will break except it will be unexpectedly. That rule has been true. Lightning hit a few houses away and everything connected to the cable died. The power in the house wasn’t affected, just everything tied to the cable.
            I brought the almost still smoking cable box into the local cable office. The representative immediately proclaimed that when lightning hits and blows up technology, “It is an act of God.”
            I smiled, “Can I quote you?” He hesitated a moment and then nodded. So, I wrote a column a few years ago that a major international company affirms that there is a God. He seemed cranky the next time I saw him.
            It is likely that it wasn’t God who broke my guitar. But I now understand and have long since forgiven her.

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Bill McCamley: An example of what is ailing Dona Ana County and New Mexico

© 2016 Jim Spence - Normally I listen to music in my car. My phone has my music collection on it and it connects automatically via Bluetooth wireless when I start the car. Monday my phone was on the charger at the office when I ran a couple of errands, so I switched on the radio.
Listening to the KOBE AM 1450 the news came on and suddenly I was listening to Bill McCamley. McCamley was allowed by KOBE to offer his views about the budget impasse in Santa Fe. In typical McCamley fashion he distorted reality to fit his false narrative.
The fact that Dona Ana County keeps sending economic illiterates like Bill McCamley to Santa Fe helps explain why Dona Ana County, with all the natural advantages we have, continues to be one of the most impoverished counties in America. For some odd reason the news people at KOBE decided to provide a forum for McCamley to engage in raw partisan indoctrination. He did so as the KOBE news staffer disguised the piece as a news story.
What was almost comical was that in this so called news story, McCamley was lecturing about the budget impasse’s impact on local businesses. The comedy lies in the fact that McCamley knows very little if anything about business, local or otherwise. I have interviewed Bill McCamley a few times. When it comes to what is best for business, he is about as clueless as they come. McCamley once told me he sold a few t-shirts out of the trunk of his car. He offered this assertion as proof of his business acumen. Basically, McCamley has been getting his living money from various forms of government his entire adult life. In exchange for his wages, he votes for poverty perpetuating policies every time.
McCamley suggested in this "news" piece that Governor Martinez was going to destroy NMSU, which was an absurd lie. It went unchallenged as there was no input at all from the governor’s office on the story.
Here is the real problem that continues to never be addressed. Consider America's ten cities (over 250,000 in population) with the highest poverty rates. Detroit, Michigan which is 1st on poverty rate list hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1961. Buffalo, New York is #2. Buffalo hasn't elected a Republican mayor since 1954. Cincinnati, Ohio #3 has had no Republican mayors since 1984. Cleveland, Ohio, not since 1989. Miami, Florida has never had a Republican mayor. St. Louis, Missouri #6 not since 1949. El Paso, Texas is #7. El Paso has never had a Republican mayor. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which is 8th, not since 1908. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania #9, not since 1952. And poor Newark, New Jersey # 10, not since 1907.
Not only is Dona Ana County one of the poorest in the nation, New Mexico itself, while surrounded by prosperous states to the north, east, and west of us, is one of the poorest states in the nation, and most surely the poorest in the southwest. The difference between New Mexico and Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Texas is clueless anti-business Democrats like McCamley have been running New Mexico into the ground for six or seven decades, while these other states have elected Republican legislatures for long periods of time. Notice a pattern that plagues New Mexico also plagues all of those cities? Poverty and Democrats go hand in hand. Democrats convince poor people to elect them. And poor people stay poor while the businesses in these areas suffer or move on.
No doubt McCamley is a smart guy, when it comes to shaping his preferences for policies that are destined to perpetuate poverty. McCamley always has a boogieman to beat up, and that boogieman is always free enterprise and the business community. Of course this is the very nature of Democrats. They always do things to destroy businesses except for crony capitalists who siphon off government funds.
What is a joke is that KOBE would play McCamley’s words as if he is some sort of authority on business people or cares that they make payrolls that keep people from being poor.
It is also no wonder I was thrilled when my phone was re-charged later in the day so the chances of me having to endure the McCamley con game on the radio in Dona Ana County were completely eliminated.

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