Nature Shows

Occasionally PBS will have a show that catches my eye. The other day landed on one about these veterinarians in Africa (Botswana maybe?) that worked at a habitat for elephants. A baby elephant had some disease they needed to monitor so they separated him from the pack to medicate him and monitor his progress. I’m not sure what diseases he contracted or why he needed to be separated. The saddest part was watching these doctors and clinic workers drag this little guy away from his family while they freaked out and try to attack the workers, who they basically trust. The little elephant came around after a few days of serious emotional turmoil and started feeding from a bottle. 

Most of us won't get to experience animals in the wild or even in a reserve. These shows get us closer than we otherwise might. 

The BBC is the gold standard. Their nature stuff is impressive; the camera work is flawless. Each episode of Planet Earth, or Blue Planet tells small stories inside of larger ones, colonies of pipers within island communities and how dolphins follow mackerels. I’m cynical enough to think maybe the footage doesn’t show exactly what it purports to show however. Does the family of geese on screen encounter predators exactly the way the narrator lays it out or am I seeing clever camera work and a lot of different geese? Are bison running from wolfs in real time, or is it different packs at different times? How much mundane filming do the crew engage in before they have enough footage? Every so often they get lucky. I thoroughly enjoyed this seal attack from a starving polar bear. I don’t think the film crew could have gotten a better shot if they air dropped the seal on the patch of Ice before releasing the skinny bear from a cage.

With filming it’s tough to get that perfect shot where the great white bites down on a struggling sea lion paddling like mad. I can understand adding sounds like crunching snow and bones cracking. Is it dishonest? I guess a little, but it’s a long way from staging events. It’s a little hard to take the ‘family’ dynamic angle in the stories cooked up by the narrator. Every pair of mating birds or turtles or snakes is somehow a family working hard to keep their offspring safe and learn a trade. Some animals mate for life and raise the next generation, wolves and penguins, but it isn’t the norm and notions of familial care seems forced. Narrators get carried away on this. I understand why they do it; it adds a personal touch in an otherwise monotonous video.

As to why I enjoy zoning out on nature films, this article gets it. From the Independent: “They are tranquilizing television, a form of social calming, as soothing and unthreatening as a hot bath.” Love the phrase ‘social calming’.  It almost sounds like the opposite of social media. I think it gets to the heart of why I enjoy them so much, I don’t have to follow characters, scripts and bother with Adult content if kids are in the room. So far the politics (mostly) are low key, running in the background but easy enough to ignore. There are too many dark, nihilistic shows on TV and Netflix and I’d rather not try analyze another philosophy. Certainly I’ll turn off anything preachy but most nature shows tread lightly hoping to avoid the fate of so many shows today, political exhaustion.

Nature and nature documentaries are different beasts, the same as watching a basketball game in the arena and seeing it on TV. But appreciation breeds experimentation and if the BBC is responsible for an interest in nature that leads to hiking and camping than bring it on. As of now I’m not a huge fan of camping, not the real kind at least with tents and lanterns. I’ll do the cabin style with the screen door and electric outlets, as long Wifi is available. I’m not crazy about clip clopping down to the shower carrying a towel and a change of clothes and hoping the last person didn’t use all the hot water.

I enjoy nature because it was created to be enjoyed. Natural wonder is a kind of unifying beauty we can all share. Animals are a part of it too. It isn’t surprising that so many of us love to see the same majestic stuff on summer vacations. From the Grand Canyon to Yosemite and the Rocky Mountains we all enjoy the same things.

So keep filming and creating; I’ll certainly be watching.

Enjoy Washington's Birthday

We all get to be a stick in the mud some of the time, a curmudgeon for the right season.  For a lot of us complaining about niche civic issues comes with a strange pride all its own. So try not roll your eyes as I present mine. President’s Day is un-American. It dilutes a full strength celebration of greatness by adding a pitcher of water in the form of mediocre leaders. 

 Some places still celebrate Washington’s birthday but most (like Oklahoma) call it President’s Day. Others (like Illinois) still celebrate Lincoln’s birthday as well as Washington but Abe doesn’t get a federal holiday.

It’s become the ‘trophy holiday’ for US presidents, everyone gets one. They don’t get their own of course, they have to share. Imagine doing this with the Oscars. Can you see Gary Oldman or Margot Robbie offering to share a best actor award with the field? Not all heads of state are created equal and a holiday that lumps them in together (wheat and chaff) is a disservice to a truly great man, George Washington.

Most states (before 1971) celebrated our first president’s birthday and if it happened to fall on a weekend, too bad, see you at work on Monday. The desire to have long weekends led lawmakers to shift it to a Monday and start calling it President’s Day. This happened a little over time. Shifting dates, blending leaders. So it’s now a mish mash of people and meanings all amounting to a free day from school and not much else.

Importance gets swept aside when we shoehorn critical holidays into convenient shopping and travel days. We have the Monday Holiday Law of 1968 to blame. I’d prefer celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. on his birthday and not the 3^rd Monday in January, but at least he isn’t sharing it with anyone yet. Neither sharing a day with anyone is Casimir Polaski, whom Illinois honors on the 3^rd Monday of March (again with the Mondays!). To be fair I had to look him up every year, I still don’t know. I’m sure whatever he did it was great though! That's kind of the point. He's another Monday guy.

“Off school this week?”

“Yeah it’s a holiday on Monday so you can sleep in”

“Perfect. Which holiday anyway?”

“Oh I can’t remember, some leader I guess”

"Some leader that did some thing years ago, old guy, probably dead by now"

I guess it’s my soapbox thing, we all need one. Clearly the issue is further down on just about everyone’s list of ‘stuff to change in 2019’.  I think a lot of people are genuinely confused that this is bugaboo for anyone, ever.

“Really? This is your big crusade? Against having Monday holidays?”

Well no, not for all of them. Labor Day makes perfect sense to hold on a Monday; it’s a day to celebrate workers by uh…well, not working I guess. It doesn’t matter though because it doesn’t represent some accomplishment or big idea that transformed life. It used to be big in the Soviet Union with…let’s call them ‘class struggle’ types. Thankfully that one lost some of its meaning.

Why stop at presidents of the United States? Why not include presidents of any civic organization or club, you know for inclusiveness. But then again, why draw the lines around American only groups? How many presidents (or whatever the country leader is called) exist around the world? They should count as well. How about the ones that didn’t get elected but tried really hard? Doesn’t seem to fair to leave them out. Has anyone ever wanted to be a president? We are celebrating you too.

Partly why I’m for tradition in holidays is that they were created for a specific meaning to honor a specific person, or idea. Any change in structure weakens the foundation that holds up the important day. Holidays are exclusionary. If they weren’t what would be the point? The ones who matter get the respect.

So George this free day is for you. You aren’t sharing it with Tyler, or Pierce, Arthur or Van Buren.  

State of Union '19

The State of the Union (SOTU) was Tuesday. 

Trump is great in these big moment settings and even manages to be charming and statesman like. I’m not sure if it’s the preparation or the event but he nearly always gets high marks from viewers. Most of the viewers are probably supporters, which skews the data, but not all. Conservative pundits hate the SOTU because they think it looks a lot like a king addressing his subjects. Their thinking goes something like this “We aren’t ruled by a king or monarchy and having a president give pronouncements from on high smacks of rulers and the ruled. Another complaint says the speech is basically useless as policy, no one remembers it weeks later and Congress gets back to telling the president to go pound sand. He tweets something nasty about “Pocahontas” and it’s back to normal.

Both criticisms are true but the first one is such an old fashioned one it hardly applies. Complaining about the monarchical vibe of the SOTU is like worrying about piracy in the Caribbean. It was a much scarier reality 200 years ago. If the office of president is more powerful today than it’s the fault of Congress for acquiescing law making abilities to the executive branch. Congress has the authority to declare war but we treat ‘going to war’ as a presidential decision.

 I’ll buy the second criticism though. The speech is generally forgotten by both parties within a week’s time. I like it as a historical record though. SOTU speeches go all the way back to Washington and it’s a good way to understand issues facing the country at the time.

I do get annoyed by the slow speech patterns, standing and sitting for every ‘home run’ idea or bravo moment. It forces the writers of the speech to aim for big claps. It’s a show. I understand why that’s irritating but much of politics is theater and this is just the biggest stage.

Here is what I liked. Trump reinforced his position on the wall and drove home the emphasis on security at the border. Will it get him the wall he needs? I doubt it. The votes aren’t there. It would have been better to get the funding last year and put the pressure on his own party to support it. They had a majority after all. I can’t see what changes in the minds of democrat lawmakers. It feels like positions have hardened on this whole business. He could always call for an emergency at the border and use allowable funds to construct the wall, fence. I don’t think he really wants to fight that court battle that would follow.

I like how he talks about abortion. He doesn’t use milquetoast language like “culture of life” when signaling support to pro-lifers. He says things like they “rip the baby out of the womb” which is admittedly hard to hear. But then, some things should be hard to hear. His proposal for a ban on late term abortion comes just after the horrific bill in New York passed which eliminates restrictions on the procedure. His tone of disgust was perfect.

I don’t like Trump’s embrace of North Korea or their nutty leader. Not only because he is a dictator who has starved his people and murdered his own family members, but because this is far from a win. It may turn out that the North dismantles its nuclear facilities over time but I doubt it. President Bush tried this and got burned. They have a tendency to promise or hint at what the US asks for and sign treaties, or agreement, or frameworks. But they always back out. Usually it’s a tactic so the US releases their seized bank accounts and frees up their ability to get money. Once awash in cash, they do what dictatorships do. Kick out inspectors and fire up the rockets for testing. Maybe this time will be different but I don’t think so.  

A couple things set off my spidey senses about the direction of the speech. I’m not picking on Trump because both Bush and Obama did it on similar things. Proposals suggesting the federal government ‘fix’ things never before within their purview. The family paid leave stuff is not an American idea, sorry. It’s unclear at this point who gets the bill for mom and dad’s absence from work. Will the government require insurance plans to cover it or does Uncle Sam fork it over at tax time? I’d like to know who came up with this idea? I imagine wonks dreaming up ways to spend funds they don’t have, “Hey I know, how about another welfare program? Yeah, we’ll say it’s for the kids. That always works.”

Taxpayers aren’t responsible for your time off, whatever the reason. Either use your vacation time or take the hit. Or, save some money and quit expecting us to work harder while you sit around in your sweatpants. Having kids is a responsibility. Having a job is a responsibility. Both are duties the individual need care for. The real problem isn’t the transfer of money, from productive to unproductive segments; it’s the addition of yet another entitlement. Entitlements become ‘rights’ shortly after being implemented. And good luck taking it away once it’s implemented. Sorry, this one strikes a nerve. 

 Does every social problem in the country need to be addressed by Washington? Are we really so helpless and incompetent to need a federal solution to everything that ails us? Some private employers have started providing family leave as a benefit. We have wonderful charities and churches that assist people in financial straits. If paid time off is going to happen it should happen in the private sector.  

In short, the SOTU was far cheerier than I expected. There was some forgettable parts about the nation’s infrastructure bill (state’s don’t fix their own roads?) and drug prescription prices (I guess that’s a thing). In reality presidents have to be laser focused on one maybe two issues. For now it’s immigration.    

The Value of Card Collecting

Value means different things to different people. Some never realized the value in collecting baseball or football cards because the market fell apart. Cards were meant to package and sell to kids so they could search for their favorite players. So even though the value of most cards is basically worthless, for kids who bought and traded the memories and the search are what matters.  

This would have been about 1988 or 1989, just as I was getting into middle school. I’m not sure if it was my age or the popularity of card collecting but it seemed most of my friends bought and traded. Upper Deck was the best card. Expensive and glossy, you paid at least twice as much as Tops, the cheapest. I had some other brands as well like Donruss and Fleer; Upper deck had the best look though. Their cards had a consistently high trade value. Like most kids I checked the price guides as much as possible. I never quite understood the magic of card pricing. Who exactly determined what a card was worth? Did a player’s performance drive the value or was it the scarcity of the thing?

I can understand how the condition of the card worked, nearly new looking surface with sharp corners were considered mint. The opposite was true for cards thrown into a shoe box and shuffled around like playing cards in a casino. Mostly that’s what mine were, crumpled and torn. I remember being in a card store and checking out the cards behind the glass case. I saw a familiar rookie card for Rams Quarterback Jim Everett. The guy was selling it for 12 bucks and I was pretty sure I had it. I rushed home and threw open the closet. I frantically dug through my bunches of mixed baseball and football cards until I found it. Boom! I knew it. There it was, the pricey card with the Los Angeles QB in his helmet. Problem was it looked like one of those Post It notes with a phone number you crinkled up and threw out, deep grooves crisscrossing the surface. The worst card in the box, it wasn’t even close. I could hardly read the print, looked like it got wet at some point. The only surprise was why I managed to keep it at all. Shortly after that I started using plastic sheets and binders.

Card price was something to check on and possibly brag about. It was never a way to make money or have a showy collection. It existed as a hobby until it didn’t. I always had the idea that by saving the cards I’d sell them someday for a good price. The dream of possessing some rare collection faded like the color on my Everett card. Basically everything from that era is worthless now. The market became flooded by card companies overprinting popular sets. We understand how supply and demand works so what happened to make everyone forget the rule? Too much of a thing forces its price down. Maybe the idea that cards could ever be “worth” something is silly on its face. Aside from a few pre-war tobacco cards (Honus Wagner) or a Mickey Mantel rookie, most have personal appeal. 

Any company that has the ability to create more of a thing due to popularity is going to do it. If you ever watch Antique Road Show or follow any of these ‘pickers’ type serials, rarity is usually the key ingredient in value. Either something is made by hand, or manufactured using a process we don’t use anymore. Certain items get created in small batches and keep their value, while old typewriters or vintage lamps haven’t been made for years. Card companies just kept printing to the point where no one could hope to make any money. But card collecting for those who just wanted cards of their favorite players was an adventure.

 I always looked for Nolan Ryan cards. I especially tried to find sets of cards within a series. Upper deck did a series of Nolan Ryan cards called “Baseball Heroes”. I think they did a few players the same way, with a full set of collectibles. They weren’t rare but looking for them became a mini event. I eventually got the whole series by trading or buying them from shops. I just googled them to see how much they’re worth, most go for $2 per card, sad really. But the same way a photograph evokes a memory, a 1991 Nolan Ryan card is surprisingly loaded with memories. In fact just flipping through the plastic sheets and carefully laying them one on top of the other brings specific events to mind.

The value for me is in the finding. Maybe that's a bit like saying, "it's the journey, not the destination". Collecting is a fun way to make weekend trips and vacations more enjoyable.  The card pricing racket was more mystery than formulaic standard. Once you get past rarity and condition, the only thing to do is find the best players, or the one’s you like. That’s basically what I did. Besides, what if you have a card worth $20? Who is going to pay you for it?

Better to hold on to it and remember what you gave up to get it. That's the real value anyways; who said baseball cards are worthless?