Reelpol

LISTENING FOR AN ANSWER TO ALL OF LIFE'S PROBLEMS

Published in the January 14, 2015 edirion of the Ventura County Star

"To be able to find that song that I can be interested in takes many versions, and it takes a lot of uncovering," admitted Leonard Cohen in an interview with Paul Zollo ("Songwriters on Songwriting"). Cohen penned a staggering 80 draft verses to his hit song "Hallelujah."

"If I knew where the good songs come from," he added, "I'd go there more often. It's much like the life of a Catholic nun. You're married to a mystery."

The suits at Columbia Records, not realizing that "Hallelujah" would not only eventually be recorded by more than 300 different artists, but would also be employed in numerous films ("Shrek," "A Lot Like Love"), television soundtracks ("Criminal Minds," "The West Wing," "House") and televised talent contests ("American Idol," "America's Got Talent"), initially refused to give Cohen's 1984 album ("Various Positions") the green light.

"Hallelujah," in addition to becoming the subject of both a book ("The Holy") and a BBC radio documentary, was also played at Fenway Park during a tribute to the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings.

And just last week, Bon Jovi's version of "Hallelujah"  went viral on YouTube — with 20 million hits and counting.

By picking and choosing among "Hallelujah's" 80 draft verses, cover artists have been able to co-create (with Cohen) a personal interpretation of the song — from melancholic to uplifting to acerbic to joyful.

Bono, who is a big fan of "Hallelujah," told Rolling Stone in 2012, "I've thought a lot about David in my life. He was a harp player and the first God-heckler. As well as shouting praises to God, he was also shouting admonishments. ‘Why hast thou forsaken me?' That's the beginning of the blues."

Since Cohen enjoyed numerous hits ("Suzanne," "I'm Your Man," "Bird on a Wire") in addition to "Hallelujah," the national media went into cardiac arrest upon discovering the legendary singer-songwriter had opted to retreat from the music business' spotlight in 1994.

In his 2014 book, "The Art of Stillness," author Pico Iyer describes meeting Cohen on a California mountaintop. During the five years Iyer's boyhood idol spent in seclusion at the Mt. Baldy Zen Center near Los Angeles — meditating, doing odd jobs and enjoying the friendship of an elderly Japanese abbot named Kyozan Joshu Sasaki — Cohen was also ordained as a Rinzai Zen Buddhist monk and took the Dharma name "Jikan" (meaning "silence").

Why in the world would a man who made his living making music that the entire world embraced, choose, at this point in time, to embrace the sounds of silence?

Cohen confessed to Iyer that he found sitting perfectly still to be the answer to all of life's problems.

"Leonard Cohen," Iyer wrote, "had come to this Old World redoubt to make a life — an art — out of stillness. And he was working on simplifying himself as fiercely as he might polish the verses of one of his songs."

"What else would I be doing?" he inquired of Iyer. "Would I be starting a new marriage with a young woman and raising another family? Finding new drugs, buying more expensive wine? I don't know. This seems to me the most luxurious and sumptuous response to the emptiness of my own existence."

"Typically lofty and pitiless words," writes Iyer. "Living on such close terms with silence clearly hadn't diminished his gift for golden sentences. But the words carried weight when coming from one who seemed to have tasted all the pleasures that the world has to offer."

Going nowhere, as Cohen pointed out, was the grand adventure that makes sense of journeying to anywhere and everywhere else.

"With machines coming to seem part of our nervous systems, while increasing their speed every season," concludes Iyer, "we've lost our Sundays, our weekends, our nights off — our holy days, as some would have it."

With one-third of American companies now funding stress-reduction programs and such trends as observing an "Internet Sabbath" — turning off online connections from Friday night to Monday morning — illustrate how increasingly frantic we are to unplug ourselves from technology and/or to bring simplicity and serenity back into our lives.

When Nicholas Kraft crisscrossed the country to film his documentary "Pursuing Happiness," the most frequent question he encountered was "What is the secret to happiness?"

Kraft's response? "It's no secret at all. Which is not to say that there isn't a lot to understand. It is kind of like music. There are only 12 notes and people are still composing music with those 12 notes. I think there are only a limited number of things that really contribute to happiness, and those are things that we already know."

I suspect Kraft's definition of happiness might cause Leonard Cohen to shout — "Hallelujah."

Beverly M. Kelley is author of "The Oldest Cold Case in Port Cabrillo" and professor emerita at California Lutheran University. This is her last column for the Ventura County Star

 

 

FULFILLING A DREAM OF CITIZENSHIP

Published in the December 31, 2014 edition of the Ventura County Star

I'm betting that while the rest of us are jotting down resolutions we won't/can't keep, Jonnalyn Cabarles is applying for her American passport.

Less than two weeks ago, this 36-year-old native of Manila was naturalized as a U.S. citizen — the culmination of a five-year ordeal that included mounds of paperwork, anxious hours of interviews and the not-so-easy citizenship test.

According to the Honorable John A. Kronestadt, such illustrious immigrants as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (Czechoslovakia), Oscar-nominated actress Salma Hayek (Mexico) and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (Austria) have set the achievement bar exceedingly high.

Jonna and 4,386 other applicants gathered at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Dec. 19. California boasts the largest (19.4 percent) pool of candidates and Jonna's cohort included natives of 133 countries — with the most hailing from (in descending order) Mexico, the Philippines (like Jonna), El Salvador, Iran and Guatemala.

Judge Kronestadt offered his congratulation with the words, "You dreamed and you followed the rules." In 2013, a total of 779,929 dreamers became naturalized U.S. citizens.

As Jonna posed for pictures, she must have been thinking of Coco Chanel's words, "A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous." Still, Jonna couldn't conceal an impish look that betrayed her wicked sense of humor and a higher-than-average IQ.

With a B.A. in Communication Arts from the University of the City of Manila, where she won the Outstanding Student Award, Jonna initially arrived in America in 2008. She later moved to Ventura County, where she is known as "The Princess of Port Hueneme," to assist two City Council members with the care of their (respective) mother and mother-in-law. Her bottomless patience proved invaluable in such a physically and psychologically challenging profession.

Ever since she could remember, Jonna dreamed of becoming an American citizen. Her mother, Navidad, loves to remind Jonna that even as a toddler, she insisted that all of her clothes (even then, she was a "fashionista") must bear the "Made in USA" label.

"The Princess," she proclaimed with a regal toss of her head, "will not use anything — not even a toothbrush — that is not American."

Even now, her Facebook page, which she operates under the nom de plume "Jondita Bratinella" (emphasis on the "brat"), displays the appropriate meme, "All I want is world peace and my own red soles."

Her father, Alexander, also recalls that his daughter would howl with rage if gifted with a doll that was not a Mattel product. When he received the official news that Jonna was a brand-new American, he quipped with great pride, "Now I shall call you ‘Barbie.'"

Jonna will be registering as a Republican. She categorizes herself as a political conservative who would like to vote Condoleezza Rice into the Oval Office.

She confessed that the hardest question on the exam was to write out, verbatim, the words of the national anthem. I don't know if any of us, much less wannabe-warblers at sporting events, could earn the perfect score she did.

One of the best things about America, she maintains, is the food. This was the first year she enjoyed a Thanksgiving turkey with all the trimmings. No gobblers in the Philippines, so she says.

In speaking of a Filipino noodle dish (that is as popular here as it is back home), she allowed that now that she's a citizen, she will pronounce "pancit" with a very broad "a" and accent on the first syllable — as we Tagalog-challenged Americans do.

I suspect that Jonna would agree with columnist Ruben Navarrette, who often argues that the road to citizenship should not be easy.

"It's about a lot more than voting," he writes. "It's about knowing English even as we strive to acquire new languages. It's about surrendering your allegiance to another country or another flag, and — as President Kennedy said — asking not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country."

So what's next on Jonna's agenda? She wants to be included on Judge Kronestadt's illustrious immigrants list.

I wouldn't bet against her.

Beverly M. Kelley writes a biweekly column for The Star. She is the author of "The Oldest Cold Case in Port Cabrillo."

 

 

TRAVEL, LIKE CHRISTMAS, IS ALL ABOUT EXPECTATIONS

"Are you excited about Christmas?" we inquire of children. They view this as a ridiculous question.  

You see, for the most part, they aren't forced to risk life and limb to hang the outside lights, gird their loins in anticipation of the family drama queen's rants or even sweat up a storm preparing the holiday feast.  

Christmas is all about expectations. 

Yet since we not only spent a week on Easter Island recently, but also tacked on a 10-day French Polynesian cruise, my mind is still on expectations of the travel variety. 

While Charlotte Bronte wrote, "life is so constructed that the event does not, cannot, will not---match the expectation," I suspect that expecting too little might prove far worse than expecting too much. 

When I asked a fellow sojourner why she had traveled all the way from Montreal to Easter Island, she admitted that as a child she had fallen in love with a poster of Ahu Tangariki. 

"Don’t say a word," she would insist---upon learning we had photographed the site the day before.

She wanted to be (in her words) "a tabula rasa" as she personally glimpsed the Moai.

She couldn't possibly be, however, a "blank slate." Her poster had led her to at least three false expectations: that Easter Island's most photographed site would be hers alone to enjoy, that the sky would be painted in the same vibrant sunrise colors and that the statue detail hadn't seriously eroded in two decades.

Additionally, this woman routinely expects to be disappointed. Only the day before she had created a huge stink about the food, her accommodations and the service. 

She reminded us of stuck-in-a-rut travelers who resist all changes to their daily regimen. They get tcked when they fail to find prune juice on the menu, a sleep-number bed in their room or the absence of precipitation in the Great Outdoors.  

We, on the other hand, had been tickled by the hotelier’'s idiosyncratic conduct. She seemed to be the Polynesian equivalent of "The Soup Nazi" made famous on "Seinfeld." We now had an amusing story to tell.

Unfortunately, travel, instead of merely broadening the mind, also broadens the beam---especially aboard a cruise ship. 

Still, as proponents of the "if it scares you, it might be a good thing to try" philosophy, we endeavored to taste new foods from doughy breadfruit to poisson cru (raw fish) to po'e (taro pudding).  

While our fellow passengers (most of whom had racked up voyages in the double digits) attempted to be open-minded, a myopic few viewed everything through the lens of "getting my money’s worth." In fact, they felt financially cheated when forced, by unanticipated circumstances, out of their comfort zones.  

"But you are on vacation!" the Polynesian tour guides would exclaim with frustration. They actually considered it a personal failing if a client was "unhappy."   

Still, did the couple from Moscow really expect the impressively multilingual (English, French, Spanish and Tahitian) guide from Moorea to converse in fluent Russian as well?

 We decided to bestow our unofficial "Go with the Flow" award on Martha. During the second day, she came down with a (still undiagnosed) fever and was quarantined to her cabin by medical staff.  

Five days later, she emerged from the ordeal with a heartwarming smile on her face (despite a $600 doctor bill), a hearty appetite and heartfelt gratitude---her thoughtful roomie, Janet had videoed their planned excursions, smuggled in restaurant doggy bags and (via iPhone texts and photos) did the bulk of Martha's souvenir-shopping.

While Susan Heller provided sound travel advice when she wrote, "When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money," we invested our loot upfront---leaving few francs or pesos for tourist shop proprietors.

 Handmade curios (oil-painted pareos, rongorongo carvings) or homegrown products (manoi oil, vanilla pods)---seemingly unavailable in the US---however, were must-haves. Of course, we had forgotten we reside in a global economy---where just about everything can be obtained at amazon.com. 

Still, when our new BFF from Hangaroa requested an American flag, we didn’t hesitate to say, "yes." We now know that though Amazon doesn't ship to Easter Island, USPS does. Tepihi’s stars and stripes are on their way.

 Our cruise line's advertising campaign included a "come back new" mantra. Yet, the letdown expressed by our shipmates upon our return tells us that those who expected this ocean voyage to be life-altering, were sorely disappointed. 

 Still, their dissatisfaction may be merely temporary. According to Miriam Beard, travel is "a change that goes on, deep and permanent---in the ideas of living."

"Are you excited about your next trip?" our friends inquire. 

 "Maybe when we pay for this one---and Christmas," Hubby sagely replies.

 

 

 

UNUSUAL INTERPRETATIONS RISE FROM EASTER ISLAND

 

This is the second in a two-part series from Easter Island published on Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2014 in the Ventura County Star.

In a 1956 broadcast of Robert Nathan's satirical "Report on the WeUns," we learned that anthropologists in 7956 CE unearthed the ruins of an ancient civilization identified only by the hieroglyphic symbols "USA."

The scholars attempted to piece together a theory about  the people from words on a deteriorating monument and from curious artifacts buried deep in rubble.

For example, from finding a number of small golden idols in a region known as "Holy-Wood," they concluded that the population worshipped a god named "Os-Car."  

Further, they insisted that the evidence for this deity demanding human sacrifice were the permanent imprints of victims' hands and feet that had been left in front of a highly ornate temple. 

 I was reminded of the same scholastic hubris so gleefully skewered by Nathan in "Report on the WeUns" as I read the various books (all containing the word "mystery" in the title) about Easter Island. 

 So what do we really know about the Rapanui culture?  Short answer? Not much. The written record in the form of Rongo Rongo script (pictured above)  has proven untranslatable and any oral history died out around the same time (18th Century) the population was decimated and the Moai (iconic faces) came tumbling down.

 What remains for anthropologists and other scholars to study is located at some 35,000 archeological sites including nearly 1000 Moai, 300 Ahu (long platforms on which statues are mounted), hundreds of petroglyphs, Hare Moa (rock houses for chickens), Manavai (rock enclosures for gardens), Hare Paenga (thatched houses shaped like overturned canoes), Umu (volcanic rock-lined earth ovens), Taheta (red scoria urns carved from Moai topknots) and a number of still extant Kava Kava statues (carved wooden representations of the spirits supposedly glimpsed by Tuu Hoiku, the eldest son of Hotu Matua'a). 

We do know that a population that had, at one time, peaked at 20,000 was reduced to only 111 after Peruvian slave raiders visited in 1862 and that previous European intruders had also brought fatal diseases from smallpox to syphilis to the Rapanui.   

If the stowaway Polynesian rats (who devoured all the palm tree seeds) weren't  enough, from 1903 to 1953, the introduction of 70,000 sheep by the Scottish firm of Williamson, Balfour & Co. did manage to wipe out the rest of Easter Island's vegetation.  

 When Captain James Cook landed in 1774, the Huri Moai (statue-toppling) was already in progress and would continue until 1838 when the last one---the largest and only "named" Moai ("Paro")---ended up face down. 

 Nobody has yet been able to definitely explain the giant "living faces" with respect to:  cultural significance (ancestor worship or expensive memorials), the mode of transportation (sled, rollers or rocking steadily forward as if "walking"), the abrupt halt to production or the reason the statues were unceremoniously toppled (war, earthquake or loss of religious faith). 

Two outsiders who earned the trust and appreciation of the Rapanui were Father Sebastian Englert, who managed to trace the Rapanui lineage back more than 50 generations, and Katherine Routledge, whose interviews of the remaining elders provided information about the Birdman Competition, a meritocracy-based government and cult that replaced monarchical rule (by descendants of Hotu Matua'a) and the mysterious monoliths. 

In order to stabilize the culture,the warrior class (as opposed to the priests and king) came up with a belief system based on an ancient god called Make Make.  

 A yearly competition would determine which chief (of one of the 12 villages) would rule all of Rapa Nui for the next 12 months. 

The Hupu Manu (athletic competitors) representing each village were required to descend a thousand-foot cliff at Orongo, swim through shark-infested waters to the farthest islet (Motu Nui) and capture the first egg laid by a Manutara (Sooty Tern). 

 At that point, the winner signaled his chief that he would be the new ruler---provided his egg remained intact. 

 The victorious chief was required to do two things I think all future US presidents should consider: to shave their heads and eyebrows in an act of humility and to live alone for the first five months of their tenure. 

 Of course this 150-year-old tradition was terminated by missionaries once they arrived circa 1860. 

 Several myths have been busted by carbon dating, DNA and forensic anthropology:  the sweet potato (as Thor Heyerdahl contended) did not prove Easter Island was settled by South Americans, the Kava Kava (with sunken eyes and exposed ribs) did not prove that a famine was caused by over-exploitation of natural resources and caves filled with bones did not prove warfare and cannibalism ever existed on Rapa Nui. 

The so-called experts aren't always right. Consider this scenario:  some 6000 years hence, alien anthropologists discover the fragment of a cross in the strata below the crumbling ruins of a stadium.  

Couldn't they just as erroneously surmise that Christianity gave way to a new religion known as the NFL?

Just something else for you to think about.

AN UNLIKELY STORY OF SUCCESS AT EASTER ISLAND

This is the first in a two-part series from Easter Island published on Wednesday, November 19, 2014 in the Ventura County Star

Visiting Rapa Nui---the name preferred by residents even though it's a 19th Century designation---headed my bucket list, especially after studying Jared Diamond's blockbuster "Collapse."  

Touching down at Mataveri International Airport in a wide-body jet was not even possible until 1987, when NASA lengthened the runway to 10,885 feet. The spur, however, was not to boost tourism but rather the need for an emergency-landing site for the Space Shuttle. 

 My first impression of Easter Island? Tiny, barren and uber-remote.

 With square mileage comparable to Thousand Oaks, Rapa Nui's population of 6,000 annually plays host to 80,000 tourists and their sizable (80 percent) contribution to the economy.

 The most photographed site is Ahu Tongariki, where 15 moai (iconic giant statues) stand guard and tour guides spin out their personal version of the Hotu Matu'a's myth.  

 The "Great Parent" and his followers, legend has it, sailed---against the wind---thousands of miles to Te Pito Te Henua ("Land’s End"). Conveying cultivated plants and domesticated animals in double-hulled canoes, they arrived, according to carbon-dated artifacts, around 700 CE.

Hotu Matu'a would eventually subdivide the island among a dozen clans. Not only would his "map" serve for 57 generations but its return as a replacement for Chilean rule is also the fervent hope of independence activists seeking a favorable judgment at The Hague.

If you read "Collapse," you learned that Easter Island is the "clearest example of a society that destroyed itself by overexploiting its own resources."

According to Diamond, once slash-and-burn tree clearing commenced, it didn't stop until the entire island, once as lush with tropical vegetation as Kauai, was completely denuded. Palms were also harvested to transport moai.

Diamond labeled such self-destructive behavior "ecocide" and warned that Easter Island's fate might, one day, be our own.

No less an authority than the History Channel reports that the shortsighted Rapa Nui, in a competitive frenzy to produce increasingly gargantuan statues and feed an exploding workforce, were unmindful they might consume every tree on the island.

Subsequently the ferocious winds and tropical storms that still plague the island eroded the topsoil so the Rapa Nui couldn't farm. Without wood for boats, they couldn't fish. The resulting famine, the History Channel argues, led to civil war and even cannibalism.

Of course, if you read Eric von Danniken's "Return to the Stars," you also learned that extra-terrestrials (supposedly stranded on Easter Island) "extracted a [number of colossal statues] from the volcanic stone…which they set up on stone pedestals along the coast so they were visible from afar."  

Rubbish.  Perhaps you need to see for yourself. Visit Rano Raraku, the volcanic crater quarry where dozens of uncompleted statues remain or hike down to one of the 1,450 subterranean manavani (walled enclosures) that protect plants from the weather or marvel at tales of athletic prowess by Bird Man competitors. You can't help but be impressed by Rapa Nui ingenuity, creativity and resilience. 

These were not crazy people who allowed an obsession with ancestor worship to destroy their environment. The evidence of their elaborate system of dams, reservoirs and channels to manage water on an essentially arid island or lithic forges that split rocks for use in construction and/or leaching nutrients into the soil contradicts such nonsense.

In their book, "The Statues that Walked," Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo conclude, "Rather than a case of abject failure," what happened to the people on Easter Island "is an unlikely story of success."  

Contrary to Diamond’s hypothesis, researchers---from fossil hunters to paleobotanists---have discovered no scientific evidence that the Polynesian settlers  burned trees.

The trees did die--- but rather than holding human beings culpable, Hunt and Lipo blame the Polynesian rat (Rattus exulans) that stowed away aboard Hotu Matu'a's catamarans.   

Once the ravenous rodents hopped out on Easter Island---without predators yet with delectable palm sprouts/roots/seeds to munch on---they went forth and multiplied.  Remember a rat population can double in 47 days. 

The indigenous people might have cleared out some of the palm trees but the rats were responsible for preventing new growth.

Yet the plucky Rapa Nui played their own riff on "when life hands you lemons…"  As J.B. MacKinnon reports in "The Once and Future World," archeologists examining ancient garbage heaps on Rapa Nui found "that 60 percent of the discarded bones came from introduced rats."  There's no need to eat one's fellow man when one has an alternative form of protein.

Furthermore, an extensive forensic anthropology study of over 100,000 skeletons cited in Jo Anne Van Tilburg's "Easter Island: Archeology, Ecology and Culture" reveal scant evidence of malnutrition, cannibalism and/or violent (civil war) death.

Diamond's claim of ecocide, while it makes for effective extreme environmentalist scare mongering, just doesn't pass the common sense test---but more next time.

ROAD SCHOLAR MAKES LEARNING A LIFELONG ADVENTURE

 

 

 Published in the Nov. 5, 2014 edition of the Ventura County Star

Metus secretus — that's Latin for "fear of retirement."

Apparently, this particular phobia has begun to afflict the 78 million Americans, largely now in their fifties and sixties, who are also known as "baby boomers." Their fear comes from being forced to face a brand new stage of life that may well extend over three decades before they will shuffle off this mortal coil.

Yet, we boomers aren't really without an instruction manual when it comes to retirement. All we have to do is follow the courageous examples provided by our Greatest Generation parents or grandparents. These highly adaptive folks, who saw the average life span vault from 54 to 79 years, were the first to be confronted with the question, "Now what will I do with all this (leisure) time on my hands?"

In his 1976 book, "Master Class: Living Longer, Stronger and Happier," author Peter Spiers attributes the success of Greatest Generation retirees to "the particular combination of all the things they do — interacting with and helping other people in pleasurable and purposeful ways; getting their bodies moving in ways that keep their hearts strong, keep their muscles toned, and — this is important — keep oxygen flowing to their brains; exercising those brains with complex games and projects; and creating new things ranging from family trees and memoirs to furniture and oil paintings."

In other words, our parents or grandparents role-modeled what turned out to be a happy and satisfying retirement. They adopted a lifestyle that included physical exercise, regular involvement with family/friends and a commitment to some form of lifelong learning.

One of the ways they were able to combine all three was a trailblazing continuing education program called Elderhostel. The brainchild of world traveler Marty Knowlton and university administrator David Bianco, Elderhostel took the affordable travel and instant camaraderie inherent in European youth hostels and applied it to the typical not-for-credit college offerings geared toward the senior citizen wishing to maintain mental acuity.

Since its founding in 1975, Elderhostel (rebranded to Road Scholar in 2010 when the geezer image implied by the name caused boomers to balk at joining) has enrolled more than 5 million participants.

Road Scholar is certainly a far cry from the initial effort that signed up 220 pioneers on a handful of New Hampshire college campuses nearly 40 years ago. The number of educational adventure choices has swelled to a staggering 5,500 — not only available in every state, but in 150 countries as well.

For cash-strapped retirees, the affordable cost is a big draw. The average charge for a domestic program ($173 a day) includes accommodations, meals, lectures, activities, transportation, taxes, gratuities and insurance. Furthermore, each year, Road Scholar awards nearly $150,000 in scholarships to adults who might otherwise not be able to attend.

While the national headquarters is located in Boston, the city of Ventura, which serves as a regional hub for Road Scholar, offers a number of stimulating instructive opportunities close to home — from an expert-led watercolor workshop to a tasting tour of Ventura County farmlands to an exploration of Channel Islands National Park (the American version of the Galapagos).

Since 1985, when the first intergenerational program paired grandparents and grandchildren, oldsters and youngsters have been creating enduring memories together. Today, participants can choose from more than 100 tours/activities that take place on five different continents.

I've got my eye on three possibilities situated right here in California.

The first, which is more suitable for younger (7-11 years) grandchildren, is a photographic safari on a 400-acre private wildlife preserve that looks remarkably like Africa, yet is located just outside Santa Rosa.

The second is a comic book camp for teens (13-16 years) in Hollywood that includes the collaborative creation of an original 25-panel superhero comic and the production of a short film.

The third, also for teens (13-15), is a behind-the-scenes look at forensic science with experienced police officers, crime scene investigators, a forensic entomologist and a ballistics specialist.

According to the 2010 census, 70 million Americans are grandparents. Sixty percent of them are also baby boomers, afflicted or about to be with the dreaded "fear of retirement."

The American Grandparent Association reports that grandparents already spend $77 billion a year on travel.

Sharing our passion for seeing new places and learning new things with the younger generation has to be a no-brainer for most of us.

In Japan, ikagai is not only a commonly used but also a singularly powerful expression. Loosely translated, ikagai means "purpose," "meaning" or "joy in life."

According to the AGA, 72 percent of those surveyed believe that "being a grandparent is the single most important and satisfying thing in my life." Ikagai.

So, you say you suffer from metus secretus? Road Scholar just might have a remedy for you.

Beverly Kelley writes a biweekly column for The Star. Email her at [email protected].

Copyright 2014 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. 

FROM EBOLA TO ELECTIONS---FEAR MONGERING WORKS

 

 

An airline passenger sneezes, cracks-wise ("I have Ebola. You're all screwed.") and is immediately escorted from the plane by powder blue hazmat-suited personnel. That's exactly what happened on Oct. 8, aboard US Airways flight 845 from Philadelphia to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.

Ebola is certainly no laughing matter, but even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises: "The risk of spreading Ebola to passengers or crew on an aircraft is low because Ebola spreads by direct contact with infected body fluids," 72 percent (Economist/YouGov poll) of Americans now view Ebola as a major public health threat.

Why? Critics blame the ratings-ravenous media.

Fearful American health care workers, as the result of media images of people in Africa totally sheathed in full-body hazardous-material suits, are demanding, according to The New York Times, similar uber-expensive protection — despite the unlikelihood of ever encountering an Ebola victim in their hospitals.

Given our "say-anything-to-win" campaign culture, predictably, Ebola has also become politicized.

Conservative Republicans, wishing to fuel the anti-immigration-reform movement, are painting Latino immigrants as Ebola carriers. Democrats, seeking to defend Obamacare, are pointing out that Thomas Eric Duncan was not only the first Ebola fatality in this country, but also the only patient who was both black and uninsured.

Fear mongering works — even when the fear is manufactured. Why? Political "shock-and-awe" scare tactics, which can't bear close scrutiny in light of the facts, do their damage before the other side can mobilize. In addition, there is no significant consequence for frightening voters, even if you lie.

Just browse through the slick glossy mailers choking your mailbox. You are being told that if you don't vote against a particular candidate or against a proposed ballot measure, women will lose the right to choose, veterans will starve and Social Security will be abolished (to catalog just a few).

And if you feel apprehensive while reading these mailers, that's exactly the way six-figure political consultants want you to feel. They are trusting that you will be so willing to relieve the tension (and stress triggers all manner of life-threatening maladies, don't forget), you will, as Leon Festinger's Cognitive Dissonance theory predicts, immediately disengage your brain and/or your common sense.

Ever since Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) allowed unlimited spending by corporations and unions to call for the defeat of individual candidates, fear mongering in political ads has skyrocketed.

Is fear mongering ethical? In the Journal of Advertising, a research team led by University of Nevada's Tony L. Henthorne argued that any level of fear that is not "psychologically ‘comfortable'" is unethical.

Still, who uses the words "ethics" and "politics" in the same sentence anymore?

But if you don't care about doing good, how about doing well? It's no accident that such global icons as Coca Cola and McDonalds refuse to allow their "brands" to be advertised using fear appeals. Since a wholesome family image is key to the constant expansion of their customer base, these corporations even avoid buying commercial time anywhere near the evening news, when folks might associate their products with negative reports.

Furthermore, fear mongering can always backfire. When too much anxiety is created via fear appeals, the target, according to a study published in Social Marketing Quarterly, just gives up. In politics, an overly anxious voter just doesn't vote.

The Guardian's David Batty noted in 2001 that creators of public service ads were turning away from "the hard-hitting scare tactics that turn people off" and opting for humor instead.

The wisdom of that move has been borne out by scores of recent empirical studies. According to various researchers, humor consistently engages the audience's attention, increases name recognition, induces positive feelings, boosts likability, fosters assessments of trust and can even overcome resistance to persuasion.

The New York Times is predicting "an explosion of spending on political advertising on television — set to break $2 billion in congressional races, with overall spots up nearly 70 percent." Unfortunately for beleaguered voters, most ads will be fear-based.

"Money has always been the bully's currency in politics," observes Christopher Lamb in the Huffington Post. "But never before in political advertising have the affluent spent so much on the effluent. Humor, however, contains the acids to cut through the effluence and show us the light at the end of the sewer."

Humor, likewise, diffused a potential panic aboard Flight 845. In a YouTube video that went viral, the flight attendant prepared her freaked-out passengers with the following words, "I know you all have your phones and your, you know, video and all that stuff. That's up to you and the video and the stuff. But stay out of their (hazmat guys') faces and out of their way. And, please, only take good shots of me. OK?"

OK.

Beverly Kelley writes a biweekly column for The Star. Email her at [email protected].

Copyright 2014 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

 

LOOK WHAT'S BEHIND THE DOOR TO PRUETER LIBRARY

Published in the October 8, 2014 edition of the Ventura County Star

 

The Pulitzer prize-winning author (“Winds of War”) Herman Wouk once wrote: “The door available to everyone that can lead to happiness and success is the modest door of the public library.”

On Sept. 22, 1989, the 15,065-square-foot Ray D. Prueter Library was dedicated and named in honor of the beloved Port Hueneme mayor who served from 1962 to 1974.

Prueter led the city during a dozen years marked by such major construction projects as a shopping center, various residential buildings and subdivisions, the fishing pier, Hueneme Beach Park, the Hueneme Boys Club, the community center, the post office and an extensive ($4.9 million bond issue) expansion of the harbor.

The bespectacled, open-faced and perpetually smiling Prueter was a regular visitor to his namesake library. He often introduced himself to the children browsing the shelves and then chuckled when they would recognize him as “The Library Man.” He was also known to make an impromptu donation of pricey educational materials whenever he discovered that such supplies were out of the financial reach of the small town library.

While the self-deprecating Prueter, who passed away at 87 on April 7, 2008, was tickled at the prospect of having a library named after him, he also took special pride in the building’s unique features.

The ocean, so cherished by Prueter as well as the folks who populate Port Hueneme, is front and center in the wave-like forms of a roof designed to maximize use of natural light as well as the sea-colored Italian glass mosaics that decorate the outside and inside of the entryway.

On Sunday, Oct. 19, the interior of the cheerful, sunlit building will be transformed into a bit of old England as the Friends of the Library welcome more than 100 guests to their Victorian High Tea fundraiser. Even though Prueter’s widow, Laura, currently resides in Montana, she never fails to send a generous check.

But you don’t have to have a building named for you to be, in local historian Powell Greenland’s words, “one of a great number of individuals, beginning with William E. Barnard” (who founded Wynema in 1869) that contributed to Port Hueneme’s evolution into “The Friendly City by the Sea.”

In fact, in April 1937, when the first Oxnard Harbor District Commission, consisting of a Hueneme banker (E.O. Green), an Oxnard businessman (Eugene H. Agee) and a Somis rancher (Fred M. Aggen) proposed naming the still uncompleted harbor “Port Bard,” Richard Bard politely declined. It seemed “less fitting and, in the long run, less desirable than the old-established historical name that has been used since the days of Cabrillo.”

Last week, the Port Hueneme Historical Museum Commission inaugurated its “People Who Made a Difference” series by displaying the personal doll collection of longtime resident Dorothy Ramirez.

The diminutive Ramirez, known for her boundless energy and bowl-cut hair (more salt than pepper), died just a year ago at age 98.

Helen Brant, whose friendship with Ramirez spanned an awe-inspiring 75 years, listed a lengthy litany of honors awarded by the community organizations that Ramirez faithfully served over the years, including the highly coveted “Woman of the Year in California” title in 1998.

Yet, Brant provided the best insight into Ramirez with an apparently off-the-cuff remark. Both Ramirez and Brant had been 20-year proprietors of competing grocery stores. “But we would borrow (merchandise) from each other,” Brant confided. Can you imagine such unselfish cooperation between Ralphs and Vons?

Larry and Roberta Downing told me about Ramirez’s role in acquiring the Lillis Waters’ estate for the Port Hueneme Historical Museum. When the former mobile home resident died, Waters’ heirs offered her 1,522 pairs (a Guinness record?) of salt and pepper shakers — but with the proviso that the unique collection be prominently displayed.

Undaunted, Ramirez made it happen — from having floor-to-ceiling glass cabinets built in Ojai to helping to remove decades of accumulated grime from ceramic figurines ranging from naughty to charming to politically incorrect to nice.

During her 30-minute talk to a standing-room-only audience, an eloquent Elizabeth Babchuk introduced her mother’s favorite dolls — each accompanied by an account that amusingly illustrated a different component of Ramirez’s altruistic yet still complicated persona.

The real-life lessons imparted by the dolls gathered during Ramirez’s travels all over the world, however, remain twofold. Despite days overflowing with volunteering, she was still able to find a healthy balance between work and play and to avoid taking herself too seriously — even though her life would touch hundreds of others.

Ramirez also realized that it’s not really important that the floor, ceiling and walls of a building bear your name. It’s only the door, you see, that counts — the door you open for somebody else to arrive at a better place.

Beverly Kelley writes a biweekly column for The Star. Email her at [email protected].

If you go

What: “Dorothy’s Dolls” will be on display for the next three months at the Port Hueneme Historical Society Museum.

Where:  220 N. Market St., Port Hueneme. Museum tours by appointment.

Info: Call 488-2023 or email [email protected].

 

TEA ISN'T HILLARY, BUT SHE IS A WOMAN IN CHARGE

Published in the September 23, 2014 edition of the Ventura County Star

On the bulletin board above my computer is an autographed 8-by-10-inch color glossy of Martin Sheen. He's decked out as the fictional President Josiah Bartlet — the picture of rolled-up shirt sleeved power, resolutely perched on his Oval Office desk.

Whenever I feel alienated from and disappointed with real-world politics, this photograph, or rather the idealized "West Wing" world it represents, provides a (temporary) source of comfort.

And I'm not alone in my dissatisfaction with government. In fact, a January 2014 Gallup poll reported that 65 percent of Americans feel the same way, the highest percentage in Gallup's trend since 2001.

It's been more than 14 years since Aaron Sorkin's "The West Wing" premiered on NBC's Wednesday-night lineup but, according to Vanity Fair's Juli Weiner, "given the currency it still seems to enjoy in Washington, the frequency with which it comes up in D.C. conversations and is quoted or referenced on political blogs," people don't realize the final episode aired on May 14, 2006.

"In part," Weiner continues, "this is because the smart, nerdy — they might prefer ‘precocious' — kids who grew up in the early part of the last decade worshipping the cool, technocratic charm of Sorkin's characters have today matured into the young policy prodigies and press operatives who advise, brief and excuse the behavior of the most powerful people in the country."

CBS is hoping that "Madam Secretary," which premiered Sunday, will do the same for future female diplomats.

Téa Leoni plays cleverly-written Elizabeth McCord, a former CIA analyst who jettisons her career in academia when an old pal (Keith Carradine as President Conrad Dalton) asks her to pick up the reins at the State Department.

Her first crisis involves two "stupid kids" who travel to the Mideast, are seized by militants and threatened with death. The parallel with recent Isla
mic State executions is impossible to ignore.

But don't look for any similarities between McCord and Olivia Pope ("Scandal") or Claire Underwood ("House of Cards") or even (probable) presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

"Considering that secretary of state is surely one of the least glamorous positions in the federal government," writes Kevin Drum in Mother Jones, "it's pretty hard not to see this as a fairly transparent attempt to make Hillary look like presidential timber."

"It's a TV show, right," asks actor Tim Daly, who plays the husband of Leoni's character. He claims that the primary purpose of the show is to entertain people — not to make a documentary to support Hillary Clinton's supposed run for the presidency.

Echoing Daly, writer Barbara Hall ("Homeland") admitted that while Clinton might have served as inspiration in the early stages, many other politicians — both male and female — ultimately shaped the McCord persona.

Leoni, who named her daughter Madelaine after Madeleine Albright, told the Fresno Bee that McCord was based on "Madeleine Albright's fierce diplomacy and wit, mixed with Hillary's charm and dynamic womanhood. And, it's also Condoleezza Rice's courage, intelligence — and legs."

Of course, being accused of favoring Clinton's candidacy under the guise of providing entertainment remains a sore spot for several networks.

In 2005, conservative groups claimed that "Commander in Chief" (Geena Davis) was a thinly veiled attempt by ABC to smooth the way for Hillary Clinton's presidential bid in 2008.

Then, of course, last year the Republican National Committee and other conservative groups lobbied successfully to prevent NBC from proceeding with a miniseries starring Diane Lane as Mrs. Clinton. In addition, CNN was also persuaded to abandon a green-lit documentary on Hillary as well.

In a Salt Lake Tribune interview, executive producer Lori McCreary ("Invictus") said "Madame Secretary" was the answer to such questions as "What's life like for the secretary of state," who has to balance "an incredibly heavy workload with a personal life? And how do you even plan a single moment of your life, a baseball game, when at any minute you could be dealing with rocket attacks in Israel, a military coup in Pakistan and a border crisis with Mexico?"

The ability of "The West Wing" to propel optimistic young people into politics was all the more remarkable given the countless political scandals hogging the headlines from 1999 to 2006. The show reminded fans that while government may be overpriced, glacially inefficient and inundated in unscrupulous power-grabbers, some folks in Washington are actually trying to do the right thing.

Unfortunately, the glass ceiling in the real Oval Office has yet to be penetrated. For Morgan Freeman, who also serves as an executive producer on "Madam Secretary," the best thing about his show is what happens when a principled female is put in a position with some say-so.

Apparently, sparks fly and people can't help but keep on watching.

I might need to make room for Téa Leoni on my bulletin board as well.

Beverly Kelley writes a biweekly column for The Star. Email her at [email protected].

 

WHAT PIT BULLS CAN TEACH US ABOUT STEREOTYPING

 Photo courtesy of Buzzfeed

She was just seeking a timeout from browsing the stands at the dog-friendly Hueneme Beach Festival. Her petite brown-eyed Shih Tzu, black nose daintily sniffing the air, was leading the way.

All of a sudden, while pointing to the humongous hound next to us, the woman scooped up her pooch. "What kind of dog is that?" she demanded of the young man. He was busy chowing down a red-sauce slathered burrito.

"Pit bull," he mumbled. His dog continued to snooze serenely at his feet.

Not only did her face convulse in horror, but she abruptly turned on her heel to beat feet back from whence she came.

I have no idea why he misidentified the obvious Great Dane-mix as a pit bull. Perhaps it was a joke. All I know is that the gentle giant who had been securely leashed and under his complete control was paying absolutely no attention to our (mouthful-sized) Yorkie — or us. We felt completely safe.

So why did the lady with the Shih Tzu take a powder? Three studies are relevant to understanding her response.

The first two reveal that experts and/or the media frequently misidentify pit bulls.

According to a Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science experiment, dog adoption agency officials were proved wrong 87.5 percent of the time in pinpointing specific breeds in a canine's ancestry by DNA analysis.

And when National Canine Research Council's Karen Delise examined every fatal dog bite reported between 2002-05, she discovered that although 23 percent of the dogs in question lacked any pit bull characteristics, they were still counted as such by the media.

The third study blames the media for amping up the fear factor with respect to pit bulls. According to a 2008 National Canine Research Council survey, attacks by pit bulls invariably go national while attacks by other breeds, even if lethal, garner only local coverage.

So what can a fear of pit bulls teach us about racial profiling?

The raw data behind it seems indisputable. African-Americans are found guilty of a disproportionate number of crimes in the United States.

Yet, what if law enforcement officers routinely misidentify African-Americans as potential criminals? Unfortunately, being stopped for "driving while black" remains a rite of passage for most African-American males in this country — no matter what their bank balance, educational achievement or social standing.

Of greater consequence, however, what if eyewitnesses routinely misidentify African-Americans as the perpetrators of a crime? According to the most recent Innocence Project statistics, not only was eyewitness misidentification testimony a factor in 73 percent of post-conviction DNA exoneration cases, but of the 317 wrongfully accused, 199 were African-Americans.

Malcolm Gladwell defined racial profiling as a "category problem." "Generalizations," he wrote in The New Yorker, "involve matching a category of people to a behavior or trait — overweight middle-aged men to heart attack risk, young men to bad driving (by insurance companies). But for that process to work, you have to be able both to define and to identify the category you are generalizing about."

Pit bulls, at least, get better publicity these days. Journalists, seeking to "balance" articles on pit bulls, have stumbled across an American Temperance Testing Society study that reports pit bulls as "the second (to golden retrievers) most tolerant (in temperament) breed."

You can't buy PR like that.

Such pit bull rescuers as actress Linda Blair ("The Exorcist") and reality show star Shorty Rossi ("Pit Boss") are sparking positive stories about pit bulls.

Pit bulls themselves have become minor celebrities. "Daddy" (now deceased) and "Junior" experienced their 15 minutes of fame when Cesar Millan employed them to serve as role models for out-of-control canines on "The Dog Whisperer."

But there's still much work to be done. Just last week in Newnan, Georgia, Craig Emory Hayes used his pocketknife to deliver three bloody blows to the neck of a pit bull named Clara — who was up for adoption at the local Petco.

Witnesses reported that Clara, who had slipped her collar, bounced over to Hayes' Yorkie with a play date in mind.

Hayes claimed his terrier was being attacked.

Witnesses say Hayes was just looking for an excuse to kill. Not only had Hayes earlier expressed his fury over "a (profanity deleted) pit bull" in the store, but he also kept stabbing Clara even after the pooches were separated.

According to the official police report, the skin on the Yorkie's ear, where Clara had been pulling, was unbroken. Clara, however, had to be euthanized due to the extent of her injuries.

So what can a fear of pit bulls teach us about racial profiling?

Without fear, psychological studies conclude, racial stereotypes cannot take root. So how can we, as a society, free ourselves of fear?

Petting a pit bull might be a start.

Beverly Kelley writes a biweekly column for The Star. Email her at [email protected].

Copyright 2014 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.