Burnettiquette

Ask James Anything Friday

Some of you may remember when we used to do this on my old blog. It was lots of fun. At least I think so.

So here are the rules: Ask me anything about anything - the news, the news biz, Miami, me, you, some madness you're involved in or aware of, your romance or lack thereof, politics, civility and manners, ethics and morals, race, race relations, crime, friendships, disputes, popular culture, celebrity, life in general, etc. I will do my Dr. Phil best to answer everything. In fact, I will answer everything. Not guaranteeing that you'll like all my answers, but I'll answer every question.

We're all grown here. So there's probably no need to lay down ground rules. Besides if you use language that's too outrageous, the lurking filter will catch you anyway.

With that, ask away. But keep in mind, like I said last week my ego will be bruised if not enough questions are posted. I said last week I'd go on blog strike if by Sunday I haven't received 100 questions. But I'm in a good mood this morning. So I'll settle for 50. Tell your blog fans, friends, colleagues, people you hate, etc. And I'm sure we'll get to 50 questions soon enough. If not, you guys are gonna be reading archived blog posts for a few days, till my sadness subsides. Good weekend!

You really can't please everyone

Last week the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported on a Catholic church in Minnesota, whose priest had taken out a restraining order on a sometimes unruly 13-year-old autistic boy.

The priest says he's concerned for other parishioners' safety, because the boy who is over 6-feet tall and weighs more than 225 pounds is sometimes unruly and hard to control. He has allegedly hit people and nearly knocked others over in the church. Plus he's loud sometimes.

The boy's mom, a long time parishioner, is fighting the order in court, because she simply doesn't think it's right to block someone from attending church, and because she says the priest's claims about her son are exaggerated. In the mean time the family is attending church in a neighboring town, because the sheriff in their town warned them in accordance with the restraining order if they showed up at the their church home they'd be arrested.

My first reaction to this case was that the priest was being a jerk. But after sitting on it for a minute or so, I remembered how I used to react when faced with loud kids. Whether it was a crying baby in theater, or a mentally disabled kid screaming in a restaurant, I used to get really annoyed. I'm not proud of it. I was young and completely lacked patience with anything that annoyed me back then - especially what I considered to be unnecessary noise and disruption. In college, a buddy asked one day if he could bring his younger brother to a movie our circle was attending. The rest of us said sure, why not. My buddy showed up with his younger brother, who it turned out was mentally handicapped. I don't remember the exact handicap, but the kid yelled during the movie and kicked the seats in front of him. One look at him though, and I couldn't get angry. It was clear the kid was just really happy to be there and was thrilled with what he was seeing on screen. How can you be angry about that? Our group got dirty looks from other patrons. But that incident changed my perspective on these scenarios and made me more compassionate.

So, back to the situation in Minnesota. Was the priest right in banning the autistic kid for the "greater good" of the rest of his congregation?

Reformed James says no. But practical James says maybe - but only if the priest offered the family an alternative, and they refused. For example, my dad's a pastor. When I was in high school he had a couple in his church whose baby had the lungs of an entire men's choir. It got so loud that my dad, even using a microphone, had to stop mid sentence sometimes and wait for the baby to finish crying. So he had the sound system extended into the nursery, in another part of the building and gently asked the parents one day if they'd mind one of them taking the baby into the nursery when it was on a lengthy crying jag, so as not to disturb the rest of the parishioners. They were fine with it. The mom was actually relieved to have some place to take the kid and still be able to listen to the service. But what if they'd told my dad no, they weren't taking their kid to the nursery?

I get compassion. We need to express it toward those who are hoeing a tougher road than our own. But does their right to participate always equal or supersede the will of the majority? If most of the other parishioners back the priest, are they right?

I realize church and theaters are waaaaaay different settings. But for the sake of argument, if the priest was 100% wrong, then theoretically we have no moral grounds for asking the parents of the crying baby in the theater to take the kid outside, or for asking theater staff to force them outside.

Housekeeping

Two quick items for you:

1. Some of you have written me over the past week or so, saying when you try to comment on my blog, your comment is bounced back as spam. I've done some homework, and my good buddy Albert F. one of the Web gurus here at the Miami Herald, tells me that the naughty word filter we use is so intense that it sometimes finds naughty words where there are none. For example, the filter recently blocked a comment from our friend Claudia, 'cause it isolated "ass" in the name Claudiasskippingstones... Yeah, I know. That's harsh. At any rate, Albert is working on loosening up the filter so it doesn't block comments that way. And for those of you who want/need to cuss in your comments, you know me: I don't really care as long as what you're saying isn't blatantly, mean-spiritedly racist, sexually violent, or insulting to my wife...or my mother. So if your comments have been blocked, email me and let me know, so we can do something about it. In the mean time, until we get that filter fixed, if you must say anything stronger than "damn" try to use the watered down version of whatever word that is.
2. I used to do a better job of sharing my articles with you guys. But I got lazy. So if you're not a South Floridian and didn't read the Miami Herald or MiamiHerald.com on Monday, here is a link to my most recent article - a profile of a former Saturday Night Live cast member-turned-author.

What would you do?

Moving on from politics to normal relationships, I'm not asking that question as though you are Jesus.

But rather in reference to the following romantic scenario, reluctantly provided by one of my buddies who is growing tired of having his dating adventures analyzed on this blog:

You're a 30-something single guy who has engaged an attractive female co-worker in conversation over the past two months. From day one, the conversations have become progressively friendlier and more flirty, with the most recent flirty conversation culminating in you asking her out on a date.

Now in these workplace conversations you guys have grown more comfortable with one another and have shared bits and pieces of your lives. You've revealed that you each have siblings, that you prefer beer, while she prefers Vodka, that you both like CSI, that you both grew up in or near the city where you live and work, that you both enjoy classic rock, and B monster movies. But the one question neither of you has asked is if the other is single. You just followed your gut and assumed it. Apparently you were right, 'cause she excitedly accepted your date invite.

It's date night. You two are sitting at a sidewalk cafe, sipping booze, sharing an appetizer, and yucking it up as you "analyze" people from the steady flow walking by.

Suddenly, your date looks up and locks eyes with a guy walking past your table. Her eyes light up and she jumps up. They embrace and chat briefly. They say goodbye and embrace again, and then the guy leans in and gives your date a kiss...on the lips. It appeared to be just a peck, but you're still taken aback. The guy makes eye contact with you, nods an awkward hello/goodbye, and continues walking. Your date sits back down, big smile on her face, and picks up the conversation where it left off. No explanation.

What do you do - drop your fork and ask her what the hell that was all about, pretend it didn't happen, or obsess over it and then avoid her at work the next day?

My buddy did a combination of one and three. Right away he dropped a jokey sort of hint about three being a crowd and saying he hoped some strange woman didn't come and grope him why they ate. But his date didn't take the bait and continued on as though the evening had gone perfectly. So the next day at work he felt goofy, he says, and avoided her.

Somebody's gonna comment that he's old enough that he should have had the nerve to confront her right away and ask what that lip peck was all about. But that can be easier said than done. Semi-shyness can be a powerful crippler.

I advised him to take her for coffee during the work day, tell her he had a really good time...mostly, and under good circumstances would like to do a second date. But first he needed to know if she was already in some sort of relationship with that sidewalk kiss-face dude.

What's there to lose? She's either gonna answer "Silly, that's my big brother. It was just a peck. It's how we do in my family!" But then there's the follow-up question of why she didn't introduce you to her "brother." Or she's gonna answer "Silly, that's my best friend, my gay best friend. It was just a peck. That's how we do in my circle of friends!" And then there's the question of why she didn't introduce you to her "friend." Or she's gonna answer "Yeah, that's my special buddy. We're swingers. And you're welcome to join the party if you're open-minded enough!" And then there's the logic that she didn't introduce you, 'cause she wasn't quite sure how to tell you about her lifestyle.

Either way, if she gives the right answer he continues trying to develop the relationship. If she doesn't give the right answer, then my buddy learns a valuable lesson about why it's rarely smart to date a co-worker...at least in a tiny office setting, where you have to see each other all day everyday.

Dang! Ferraro found out!

I had planned to do a long, excruciatingly detailed post this afternoon on how I spent every second of the holiday weekend - at the beach, in the garden, walking the dog, watching the Law & Order marathon on TNT, etc., but Geraldine Ferraro had to go and ruin it for me.

Asked by Fox News Channel's Shepard Smith about media bias in recent presidential campaign coverage, Ferraro had this to say: "All the surrogates that they (the Obama campaign) had out there, from the black journalists — you know, have you read Bob Herbert recently in the past six months? There wasn't one column that had anything decent to say about Hillary."

So it's true. Somehow the former Democratic Vice Presidential candidate learned of the conspiracy among black journalists AKA Obama surrogates to poison the minds of the news consuming public and force you all at figurative gunpoint to believe that Barack Obama is the second coming and that when he stepped in a puddle last week while climbing out of his limo, he was actually walking on water.

This can only mean one thing: Undercover Brother was captured and tortured by the Clinton campaign into revealing the secrets of the Da Black Journalists Code - sorta like the Da Vinci Code, but involving press passes and Afros. 

The shame of this is I just learned the new secret handshake, which involves two more fist pumps than the last secret handshake, a flick of the thumb, and two finger snaps. And we'll all have to change the password again. Seriously, I nearly panicked this morning when I tried to log into our secret pro-Obama computer system and the voice recognition monitor rejected my  whisper of "Jello pudding pops!" Note to self, next password should not be a Bill Cosby-endorsed food-like product. Too easy to figure out.

And what about the Black Journalists Hall of Justice Legion of Doom Borg Hive? I for one don't want to relocate. I like meeting in a deluxe apartment in the sky...y...y...y. Damn! Did it again. Now we really have to move.

OK, I'll stop. I can't keep going without cracking myself up. And it's important that I don't waste those laughs, since my wife is certain I'm the only person who thinks I'm funny.

At any rate, I don't care which side of this presidential election you're on. But to suggest that black journalists collectively have gone out of their way to promote Obama is silly. You can make that argument about the media in general, if you want. Some of you will. And, as usual, I'll disagree. But to say that black journalists specifically have committed this ethical sin? Tsk, tsk, Ms. Ferraro.

If anything, the black journalists I've read on this campaign have exercised great caution and balance in their reporting. Editorial writers and TV pundits...of all colors, on the other hand? Well, that's a different ball game. They're paid to give their opinion on who should win or lose and why. But Ms. Ferraro has been around long enough to know that at least in the case of newspapers, the newsrooms and the editorial boards operate independent of one another. And the cable TV news pundits who regularly opine that Obama is likely to score the Democratic nomination? Well, last I checked none of the regulars were black, except on CNN.

Geraldine Ferraro may not have taught me anything new about how the media operates, but she helped me make my point about the similarities between old-school Democrats and old-school Republicans: the GOP does not hold exclusive rights to archaic thinking about black people's ability to operate within "the" system.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some dirt to brush off my shoulders...that's right. Both of 'em.

Friday round-up - cheap parking, tight-beaked birds, hand gestures, flies, and homicide

What's crackin' folks? Next week we're gonna resume "Ask James Anything Friday," a post we haven't done for a while. So start getting your questions together, and tell your friends, neighbors, relatives, and fellow bloggers to think of stuff too. 'Cause if I don't get at least 100 questions next Friday, I'm going on blog strike.

In the mean time I figured I'd take a quick look at the headlines and what's crackin' in the burgs across the corny fruited plains.

• Read the first paragraph and tell me where was this town, when I could never find a quarter for the parking meter? Seriously, between fines and having to use dollar bills, I've spent a mortage's worth of coin on parking in "big city" America.
• This story about the lost parrot who was able to tell folks at a vet clinic where he lived was cool, but what I'm curious about is why the bird absolutely refused to talk to police. Seriously, he bit his tongue when cops tried to get him to open up. Clearly this bird has been negatively influenced by the Stop Snitching lobby.
• Why can't a thumbs-up just be a simple thumbs-up? Too much detail here. I think from now on I'm just gonna give the power fist when I want to act out hello, instead of just saying it.
• Have you heard the one about the guy who found a fly in his water bottle? No, I'm not trying to remake the fly-in-the-soup joke. A Canadian man found a fly in his unopened drinking water bottle and sued the company 'cause of the distress it caused him. He says he's such a neat, clean person that the idea of a dirty beast like a fly in his drinking water freaked him out so badly that his business and his sex life were negatively impacted. Damn! He was initially awarded a judgment of about $345,000, or about $12.15 in American money. Kidding, kidding! I know the Canadian dollar is worth more than the U.S. dollar. Anyway, the Supreme Court of Canada just tossed out the judgment 'cause it said this guy's reaction to the fly-in-the-water was so over-the-top it couldn't have been anticipated and the water bottling company shouldn't be held responsible for his irrational fear of flies. What do you think?
• Finally, a bit of commentary: I was watching The First 48 last night, the A&E Network documentary show that follows homicide detectives around. And the two featured cases were murders of young men in Memphis and Tuscon. The victim in Tuscon was a 16-year-old who was fatally shot in the chest while walking home from the movies with a buddy. According to the buddy, two other young men approached them. One of the other young men brandished a revolver and demanded the victims empty their pockets. A moment later a single shot was fired. The 16-year-old, a popular high school jock was dead. Detectives caught up with the 18-year-old shooter with relative ease, about a day later. The first thing he told them "I didn't mean to shoot anybody." Next he told them he just wanted to scare the victims. Then he said the victim grabbed for the gun, apparently thinking it was a toy, and it just "went off." Finally, the shooter told the cops he's not that type of guy. If you're a parent or guardian or friend or sibling of a young man who likes to play pretend gangster, here's a piece of advice: tell him if he just wants to scare people he should walk up behind them and yell "boo!" 'Cause when you point a gun at someone in the commission of a crime, it sorta says you're at least willing to shoot them. And if you can't pronounce "boo!" and feel you really need to point a gun in order to induce fear, then leave the bullets out of it. But don't say you didn't mean to shoot. Shooting someone during a robbery isn't an accident. I don't care if the "evil" gun maker sold someone a hair trigger firearm and they sold it to you. When I look between my seat to get that french fry I dropped and don't see the car in front of me slam on its brakes? That's an accident. Carrying a loaded gun that just "went off?" No accident.

That's all for me today, folks. Enjoy your weekend. And take a minute or more to think about a sailor, marine, soldier, airman, or Coast Guardy person (what are they called?). Whether you disapprove or approve of our current armed conflicts, you can't be mad at the Average Joes who've given their lives in service of country.

Romance is confusing

It is a good thing that I am rooted in a marriage at this stage in my life, 'cause I'm not sure I'd be able to pull off a relationship from scratch at this point.

Too many contraditions about how men and women deal with one another, contradictions that I used to be blissfully ignorant to have surfaced in recent years. And I'm just enough of a curmudgeon that if I had to start over now, there'd be no serious dating with an eye toward settling down for a long time, if ever again.

Anyway, I'm rambling on 'cause the 2008 Harlequin Romance Report just came out. And the report says that while trust and honesty are considered must-have traits in a significant other by 41% of men and 51% of women, the same group surveyed admitted that they'd snooped in their significant other's stuff - like read his emails, read her text messages, and sifted through old letters they'd saved from past relationships.

So you must have honesty, but you don't mind digging through your man or woman's crap to look for dirt? Hmmm.

There's more. Sixty-three percent of men and women said that lying sometimes is OK, depending on circumstances. I'm less cynical about that revelation though, 'cause you just have to be an idiot if your fat wife asks you if she's fat and you say yes. For the record, Mrs. B is just as slim and fit now as she was when we met. So no, she's never asked me that question. She has asked me about meals, outfits, and hairdos before...and I've told the truth every time. Hee hee hee! But seriously, no woman can tell me with a straight face that when your shy, clumsy boyfriend reluctantly joins you on the dance floor and then asks if he's doing OK you tell him no. You tell him he's more footloose than Kevin Bacon and more twinkel-toed than John Travolta, and you tell that lie with a smile.

Anyway, the report also said that most adults - 73% of women and 72% of men - believe that confession is romantic.

That one shocks me. Yeah, yeah, my grandmother used to say that confession was good for the soul. I get the spiritual and philosophical logic behind that phrase. But when you throw romance in the mix, people, at least guys, tend not to think with their, um, minds. And speaking for guys...other guys, not me, some folks will lie until their pants are literally on fire in order to preserve a sexual liaison. Why ruin potential boom-chicka-wah-wah with a confession of past bad behavior? According to the report, most people who said confession was a romantic thing to do, said it simply made them feel better about themselves. I'm impressed. Conscience is more powerful than desire.

Anyway, for the few folks who regretted confessing, their reasons were that their confessions (to having more past sexual partners than previously admitted, to being attracted to another person, to revealing way too much detail about a past relationship, and to confessing under the influence of booze) hurt their partners' feelings.

This is all too much work. Glad I'm married.

Apples and Onions

That's my new favorite fruity comparison. See, I've always been bugged by "apples and oranges," 'cause they're both pretty good - sweet, and not at all objectionable...unless the apples are too soft.

But I digress. You want a real contrast? Apples and onions. Or upscale neighborhoods and middle class neighborhoods.

So a few days back I attended a block party in a park in my little town. I was strolling with Mrs. B and a buddy of mine around the event, which was meant to bring together people from the city's different neighborhood associations.

My buddy and I live on one side of a major highway in the middle class neighborhood. Technically we live in the same 'hood, but because he and his neighbors live so far north of me and Mrs. B, they sometimes refer to ours as two separate 'hoods.

At the barbecue we bumped into a city commissioner who lives in and represents the upscale neighborhood across the street.

She immediately started in on my buddy about "protesters" allegedly marching and "picketing" in front of a neighbor's house...in the upscale 'hood. The commissioner didn't see these protesters herself. She didn't read a picket sign. She reacted to something she'd heard, tying the "protesters" to my buddy's 'hood.

Let's pause for a moment, for background: The commissioner's neighbor is director of a soup kitchen and social service agency that caters to the homeless and destitute. It is located in my buddy's 'hood. Each day the soup kitchen's "clients" trek through my buddy's 'hood on their way to the kitchen. According to residents who live near the soup kitchen, when the clients leave the kitchen they pour through the 'hood, often stopping along the way to urinate on residents' lawns and defecate in the alleys behind their homes, leave empty food containers on those lawns, ogle residents and their children, rifle through residents' trash, peek through residents' fences, occasionally verbally assault residents who confront them, and so on.

So, knowing the background, how would you have reacted to the news of an alleged pickteter if you were the commissioner?

In a perfect world I like to think in her position I would have expressed sympathy for her neighbor, whose cause - feeding the homeless - is a noble, thankless job. But I hope I'd also see the irony: her neighbor is upset that an individual holding a sign is walking to and fro' in front of her home, while just a few blocks away in the middle class 'hood some of her neighbor's clients are pooping behind people's homes.

But that's not how the commish reacted. Instead, she told my buddy that she has a homeless problem in her 'hood too, and that she had called the police and other city officials to ask them to investigate the horror that was the alleged one-woman protest. She even described the alleged "protester" incident to my buddy as "outrageous," and "appalling," among other things. And she said the "protester" should be ashamed.

When I could bite my tongue no longer I asked her if the person allegedly picketing in front of her neighbor's home bothered her more than her neighbor's clients hassling residents in the nearby middle class 'hood.

I'm still waiting on an answer.

I could call this a matter of a politician trying to compare apples with oranges. But you tell me: is there anything similar about walking on a public sidewalk in front of someone's house, and say taking a squat behind someone's house? I kinda don't think so. I guess you do walk with your feet. And in order to squat behind someone's home you have to balance yourself on your feet. So I suppose there's some similarity. Still, not enough to warrant apples and oranges, 'cause nothing about this story is sweet or tasty.

You get what you pay for

Nintendo just released it's latest game for the Wii gaming system, Wii Fit, which is essentially you working out to instructions from the game and watching your 3D animated self do the moves on your TV.

The little board you stand on can be used as a virtual snow board, a yoga mat, skateboard, jogging track, etc. It's also a digital talking scale of sorts, and it will tell you about yourself, good and bad.

So it was inevitable that someone, somewhere who paid $89.99 for the Wii Fit was going to complain over the game's assessment of their weight and body mass-to-fat ratio.

There will probably be many, but for now the complainants are the parents of a 10-year-old girl in the U.K., who was playing the Wii Fit recently, when it told her she was fat.

The girl was distraught, her parents angry. The girl isn't fat, not even close. Nintendo issued an apology, explaining the weight measurement aspect the game wasn't meant for kids because their bodies are developing and in flux. And a rep for the National Obesity Forum wants children banned from playing the game.

It was nice of Nintendo to apologize to the girl. Kids are impressionable, and little girls these days don't need to be goaded anymore than they already are through commercials into thinking they're fat if they're anything more than scrawny.

Still, am I being calloused or was this all a bit of overreaction? I don't have a 10-year-old, so I don't know how I'd react. But I applaud Nintendo's refusal to put warning labels on the games.

I get the whole body image fiasco we've created through Barbie culture, but do you really need a label warning you that your video game might hurt your feelings? If your kid's self image is damaged by a video game, even one that promotes exercise, then your kid is spending too much time playing that game.

What the hell? Unplug 'em and tell them to go run in circles around your back yard. I guarantee you the grass won't call your kid names.

Friday Round-up

What's crackin', folks?

Some of you have emailed me to ask if we'll be continuing the "real talk about race" series that we started on my old blog a month or so ago. The answer is yes. But I'm still settling in to this blog and I'm swamped trying to wrap up a story, so no time to get to deep for a few more days.

In the meantime, let's weigh in on the headlines:

• Gay Marriage - Whatever you think of it, get used to it. And I'm not just saying that 'cause the California Supreme Court overturned the state's ban on gay marriage. My prediction is that legal advocates for gay couples will soon argue in courtrooms nationwide that the only way to legitimately ban gay marriage is to ban being gay. The argument will be if it is "legal" to be gay and to live a gay lifestyle, then it can't be illegal to formalize a gay relationship. I'm not advocating one way or another. I'm just sayin'. I really don't care who gets married, as long as it doesn't affect my marriage.
• Gun stuff - I've never been much of an activist on anything, except preventing stupid pet owners from allowing their dogs to crap on the swale in front of my house and then not picking it up. But I'm on the verge of joining some kind of gun-rights group to make a point. A colleague of mine was borderline weepy this morning over the fact that a federal court threw out NYC's 8-year-old lawsuit against gun manufacturers. The suit's goal was to hold gun manufacturers responsible for selling weapons to middlemen who then sell them with very loose standards. And then some of those guns end up in the hands of shady people who sell them with even looser standards to criminals and other random people in back alleys and underground gun "shows" who don't properly ID themselves. I actually applaud the intention of the suit, but we can still control gun crime, by grooming people from childhood to exercise self control and common sense. Then by the time they turn 16 or 17 or 18, or nowadays 12, it won't even cross their minds to buy a gun and shoot someone who offended them. The best way to control an inanimate object is to teach people to not want to pick them up. Same goes for drugs, etc. Take away the appetite and the market will go away. Of course, there is a difference. Guns aren't "born" illegal. Illegal drugs are. So in their case we should be trying to go after the market and the consumer's appetite. Guns though? Trying to curb their sale hasn't worked by itself for a loooooooong time. Theoretically, in order for gun control to work, they'll have to be banned outright, except for law enforcement and military. And that ain't happening in this country any time soon, likely never. So I say we try my way, which is hardly a new idea. I didn't come up with it. I think Chris Rock did.
• The death of two party politics - This election season has done more than any scholarly arguments ever have in the past to demonstrate that two major political parties in our system is too few, because the power brokers in either party are so desperate to distance themselves from the other side that they're backing themselves into extreme corners. Meanwhile, the average American who has learned to choose his political opinions piecemeal and not necessarily tow a single party line is stuck in the middle. I had a buddy the other day lament to me "I hope you're not getting all conservative on me." Really? You're worried about that? What if I was getting "all liberal on you?" And what exactly do those two labels mean anymore? Based on my stances on crime some folks would call me conservative. My stance on abortion and the like would probably get me labeled a liberal. Maybe not. Not sure. My support for the military (not the fatheads in D.C. who tell the military what to do) probably lands me somewhere in the middle. We could go on all day. Can you really say with a straight face that you are 100% liberal or 100% conservative on every single issue that affects how you live? Even if you lean in a majority one direction or another, it must turn you off to see your "major" party urging its stars to narrow their minds further. Seriously, I think by 2016 we'll have a legitimate third major party. I think its legions should be called Burnetticans....or Burnetticrats...or better yet Burnettertarians.
• Dating - I hope all the participants take public transportation to get here.