Round Objects

Image courtesy of FRONTLINE, a PBS program

Today I am thinking about round objects: wheels, balls, spheres and how they are propelled! They come in all sizes and compositions. I am even including “air-heads” and inflated egos in this collection.

So here goes.

I am over the guilt that I felt when I really didn’t give a flip where LeBron James was going. To be more precise, I didn’t even know who LeBron James was and why he was going anywhere that would cause such speculation. Given all that was going on in the world, I was shocked that this was about an air-filled sphere and a bit of beach in South Florida.

My concerns for the beaches of Florida do not involve Mr. James or the Miami Heat. (Nor the Miami heat.) My concerns involve the ominous slick of oil hovering both above and below the surface of the beautiful Gulf of Mexico. BP has plugged the flow it seems, but the disaster continues. Tar balls behave differently from basketballs and despite what Cleveland thinks, with far greater consequences.

Cleveland is having a bad run. Not just in the sports arena, but also in the lofty Severance Hall – home of the Cleveland Orchestra. Their resident conductor, Franz Welser- Most, an arguably mixed bag of talent, was quoted at telling Swiss media that Cleveland was an “inflated farmer’s village.” This was reported locally by the Cleveland Plain Dealer music critic, Donald Rosenberg. Mr. Rosenberg has not been Mr. Welser-Most’s most ardent fan.

As a result of the leaked Swiss interview and other criticisms by Mr. Rosenberg, the editor of the Plain Dealer has reassigned the 16-year critic to covering other arts events but not the orchestra. He is even been warned to never use the word Cleveland and orchestra together.

Mr. Rosenberg is suing just about everybody – most especially the “big wheels” of the orchestra association and the newspaper. There is a lot of air being traded about as the trial is in progress. Welser-Most even tried to put a spin on the “inflated farmer’s village” remark as an intended compliment. Was he coached by Blago?

And the world keeps turning.

I have no guilt at all over the fact that I wish Mel Gibson would shut-up, head back to Australia, and tend livestock somewhere very remote in the outback. Talk about something filled with a lot of air! I do hate to impose that on the outback, however. So there is some guilt there.

Other transistions are taking place.

Rush Limbaugh is reportedly giving up New York City. This is entirely appropriate since most of NYC gave up on Rush years ago and it is bad manners to go where you are not wanted. I wish Rush would be more expansive in his moves to bow out. Maybe join Mel in the outback and banter about their prejudices. Enough hot air between them to kick up a dust storm in Alice Springs.

George Steinbrenner gave up New York City this past Tuesday. I felt I got to know Mr. Steinbrenner over the years. But in reality, I only knew the blustery voice of Larry David and the back of Lee Bear as “he” attempted to give a degree of direction to the hapless George Constanza on “Friends.” Misdirection is arguably still a direction. Another bit of air moving about between the George’s.

A cephalopod named Paul became a sensation at picking winners in the World Cup. Yet another headliner about an air-filled sphere.

Susan Boyle is “trending” on my Yahoo mail page. No wait, it is Larry Hagman. Susan’s “air” seemed so much more palpable than J.R.’s. However, J.R. ran in bigger circles.

Everyone is breathing a sigh of relief now that Bristol and Levi are going to make things right for the hapless Palin household. A hockey puck is a flat-sided sphere and certainly “Mama Grizzly is full of it. Do you really need to have me say it?

As I read this, I fear that I sound like I am tweeting. (You know, making a log on twitter.) But I neither tweet nor twitter; at least not in public.

I wish that the world’s problems could be solved by a sphere of air or a spnning wheel.

One extreme would have a scenario where the round object is a hot-air balloon and everyone is floated effortlessly about the potholes of life. But you are viewing reality at a safe distance. Nothing is totally within your grasp of scale. This leads to decisions made “out of context” with facts.

The other, of course, is the small sphere which is kicked by kids all over the world – even in the most depressed outposts – as a temporary escape from their realities. Many, in the poorest countries, are never out of touch with the scale of their existence. The soccer ball rolls “out of bounds” into a world of harshness.

Decisions in this scenario are “life and death.” The ball is merely a momentary diversion.

So how do we balance our worries about LeBron or Mel or Rush with the problems of wars, poverty, illiteracy, and the other serious situations besetting this globe we inhabit?

Trevor Field came up with an innovative idea called the Play Pump. It was variation on the “merry-go-round” found on public playgrounds all over the world. However, in this case, as the wheel turned, it pumped water into a holding tank affording a supply of water for the village. The wheel was working for great good.

However, in the rush to expand, technology failed and the idea fizzled as village after village in Africa was left with an inoperative PlayPump and no drinking water. A surprising turn in a great idea. Did the “wheel” at the “wheel” get too caught up in becoming a “bigger wheel?”

"How easily things get broken," sings the celebrant in Mass by Leonard Berstein.

Things seem to spin unexpectedly out of control.

A curious folk-artist, Buffy Sainte-Marie, sings a haunting song, “Little Wheel Spin and Spin, Big Wheel Turn around and around.” In one of the verses, the lyrics say:

Turn your back on weeds you’ve hoed,
Silly sinful seeds you’ve sowed.
Add your straw to the camel’s load.
Pray like hell when the world explodes!

When I searched online for why balls in sports are shaped as they are, I received the following: the most reasonable object to use due to the fact that they do not take any unexpected bounces.

But for many, the very definition of life is “an unexpected bounce.”

Roadways

I have just returned from the hinterland.

I am back in Chicago after a visit to Alabama and then on to Dallas. At both locations I was treated to great times with family – most especially “the little people,” my three grandchildren.

The smallest one, the two-year old from Florida, came up to the Alabama house with her parents. She taught me a very provocative hip sway to the Sunday School tune, “If you’re happy and you know it.” It makes you wonder what is going on during the Bible story time. She also is quite taken with the “blessing” before mealtime. She insisted we have nine or so at dinner. Since she is the “deliverer,” she would interrupt you mid-bite to pronounce yet another.

Thankfully, it involved only a bowed head and folded hands and not the adornment of a shawl and kneeling upon a prayer rug. We would have never made it past the salad.

Aside from Baby Jesus riding around in a Humvee (see December 8,2009), the Texas Two have not yet embraced organized religion. It’s not that their parents are infidels, they have just not reached the exit ramp on the highway toward discovery or re-alignment following some bumpy patches within their faith. It will happen.

I grew up in a family on the “road to discovery.” Before it occurred, I was often snatched from my parents by a rabidly fundamentalist aunt and taken to services with the Pentecostals. I have “marched in the infantry” in the “Lord’s army,” with many righteous and some "not so" souls.

My most vivid memory is a tent meeting in the country where the music was accompanied by Willie Mae McDonald’s string band – a group with a Saturday-night reputation. Willie Mae punctuated the music, on those painfully hot Sundays, with her chewing tobacco that she could aim accurately at 20 paces.

The Pentecostals always seemed to do a lot of “rebuking.” Of course everyone was “Sister” or “Brother.” That was somewhat confusing to a 6-year old. We only saw them at church, not when we had a family gathering. The most alarming expression was “Press the Lord.” It was actually “Praise” but in their charismatic fervor and their attempt to emulate the likes of Amiee Semple McPherson, it came out “press.” I thought they were taking a hot iron to Jesus.

Some pathways are confusing.

My parents discovered the local church near where we lived, so I eventually settled with the Southern Baptists until I could no longer stomach the music as they discovered the “contemporary Christian songs.” (Shades of Willie Mae.) Gone were the great hymns of the faith which were replaced with tunes that seemed like an excuse to sing Saturday-night bar tunes on Sunday. Just say Jesus instead of Robert or Sally.

I tried the Methodists and the Presbyterians before discovering the UCC. It is actually the United Church of Christ, but there are those who see it as “Utterly Confused Christians.” (Or the other scenario: Unitarians Considering Christ.)

Along the way I have heard the best and the worst – both in sermon and in music. I have been “high” and I have been “low.” Neither having anything to do with drugs but in approach to liturgy and worship.

Some of my worst experiences with “church” have had to do with ministers who perceived their role as shepherd as that of browbeater: “My way is the best.” That must derive from a concept that their sheep are not very smart.

In those situations, the roadway can get really rough.

Maybe that is why I enjoy flying so much.

A great silver-bird lifts you effortlessly above all the potholes of life for a few minutes. Aside from the fact they lose your “things” and subject you to body patdowns when you have a pacemaker, it is generally quiet and smooth. Yes, I know that you will always use the back of your hand when you go below the waist.

In contrast to the streets of Chicago, I have yet to have anyone gesture with their middle finger in the airport. Like Bernice Clifton on Designing Women, “you can only have that happen so many times until it begins to hurt your feelings.”

I seem to be “in and out” of a lot of airports.

My Texas Two have begun to believe that I live at the airport since each time they drive with their mother to DFW, Granddaddy appears or disappears.

The oldest asked his mother, “Does Granddaddy live at Departures?”