Confessions of a thrift store shopaholic

They were diamonds in the rough, but once they were rubbed to a shine, their dazzle was brilliant.
This past Saturday, I went shopping for a new pair of dress shoes. After search several thrift stores, I found them – although they weren’t quite “foot worthy” yet. Whoever had last owned them had apparently not known how to take care of leather, and the exterior was caked with snow salt. The interior, however, was in good shape, and the leather foot liner bore a more important mark of quality – the words “Cole Haan.” A little while later, after I’d cleaned the interior and exterior, and polished the black leather with several coats of polish, the shoes gleamed like new. The best part? This pair of shoes originally retailed for $130 – and I bought them for $2.99.
I’m addicted to thrift shopping. To me, there’s no better present in the world than going into a thrift store and having someone say, as my friend Becky did on my 24th birthday, “Here’s $20. Buy whatever you want.” I don’t remember what I bought that night – but I remember being on top of the world, feeling like the entire store was mine for the asking. It basically was – Savers in those days was the type of place where you could find jeans for $5, and shirts for even less. Hell, you could find pretty much anything there – like Russian army jackboots, World War II leather flying trousers, and the metal detector I bought could attest to. It was like having access to the ultimate garage sale; open daily from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
You see, a good thrift store is like the beach where cultural detritus washes up after the consumer storm that created it has died down. Want to know what was really popular 5-10 years ago? Go to Goodwill. You’ll find plenty of copies of “The DaVinci Code,” George Foreman grills, and Backstreets Boys dolls (not that I’ve looked for the latter). It’s all of the stuff that people wanted when it was new, but get rid of after a few years, when the novelty is gone and they’ve moved on. In a way, I’m a forager, going through the cast-offs of a consumer-based economy, where “more” is always better. This has changed with the economic downturn – as people are no longer just getting rid of perfectly good designer clothing simply because they can – but there are still good things to be found.
I don’t know how I ended up like this. My parents always bought me nice, new things when I was growing up. I never wanted for clothes. As I grew older, I developed a fascination with thrift stores, simply because I enjoyed the mystery of them. I never knew what I was going to find, and I loved that. By the time I met my wife, I was addicted. My wife, however, took my game up a notch, telling me that she never paid more than $5 for a shirt and $10 for a pair of pants. My jaw dropped. How did she do it? Years later, I’ve learned her secrets, and then some. I’ve learned how to clean pretty much any stain out of a garment. I’ve learned that leather is a forgiving material always open to the possibility of a resurrection. I’ve learned how to hem my own trousers, and do my own dry cleaning at home. I’ve learned how to do more with less, because on a journalist’s salary, I don’t have much of a choice.
I’ve got this down to a science. Yesterday morning, I walked into the officer wearing a pair of wool dress pants ($1, church yard sale), a blue dress shirt ($1, church yard sale), a lamb’s wool v-neck Gap sweater ($6, Unique) and my new shoes. I looked like a million bucks, but had spent under $10. The confidence that comes with looking good on a budget, however, is priceless.

Kill the Messenger

Apparently, after all of the reporting on the town hall meetings, the tea party rallies, and anger over Obama’s policies, we in the media still don’t get it.

“Operation: Can You Hear Us Now?” plans to put the media “on trial” Oct. 17. The event (using information found at operationcanyouhearusnow.com) charges that the “defendants (MSM outlets) have been charged with the following misconduct: journalistic malpractice, Yellow Journalism, extreme bias, unfair and unbalanced reporting, reporting that reflects a political agenda, complicity, cover-up and deceit, partnering with Big Government, reporting of self-commissioned polls as “News,” willful misrepresentation of facts, and loss of all objectivity.”

Where do I even start?

First, I find the entire premise of this event to be just the slightest bit political in nature by itself, much like what the “Mainstream Media” is being accused of. Let me see if I get this straight: for eight years of a Republican administration, the media was doing OK? At least to the point where it was the target of a campaign like this? Or does this have more to do that the people who are behind this being more uncomfortable with the state of the world (and the media that reports it) now that Obama and his agenda have taken hold in the White House? As Rush Limbaugh said in September, “The media [are] no longer reporters. They are repeaters.” How is this any different than what happened during the Bush or even the Reagan years? How is this any different than the hook, line and sinker cheerleading that the media fell all over themselves to promote during the run up to the Iraq War? Answer: content.

“Extreme Bias?” This charge comes from an event being reported on by the World Net Daily, one of the most extreme right-wing news sources (Example: today’s headline is “Author confirms Bill Ayers helped Obama write “Dreams.’” This organization is touted as a news source – and the organizers have the nerve to talk about BIAS??

“Partnering with Big Government?” I share the opinion that Obama is a media whore. But as for the charge of complicity (which isn’t outlined any further than the mere statement) there is a difference between reporting on something and actually endorsing it. For example, when the news reports cover a plane crash, they don’t endorse it. They simply call it as they see it. It’s not much different (except for scale and lack of jet fuel) for something like Obama’s bailout plan or the economic downturn. There is a difference in being an observer and being a cheerleader – and the fact that the “The plan” page describes Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, notoriously biased in themselves, both as “American Heros” really undermines the whole “no one should be biased” idea (p.s. – not to nitpick, but whoever wrote this misspelled “heroes”). In this case, it’s simply a matter of wanting another “truth” over what’s actually being presented during the evening news.

“Obviously, the "main stream" media are hard of hearing and seeing. About 2 million mad-as-hell taxpayers assembling in Washington, D.C. for the largest-ever (most well-behaved ever, most respectful ever) protest did not make it onto their radar screens (or our TV screens).” Actually, this is wrong – it WAS covered by the “main stream” media, although obviously not as much as the people behind this event wanted it to be. Also, as far as they “most well behaved, most respectful ever,” are there any police incident reports to back those statements up? Can they be verified? In response to being “ignored,” event organizers want “freedom-loving, American-loving, free-speech loving friends” to go and demonstrate their right to free speech in front of local news outlets (in the Twin Cities, they picked KARE 11). What’s ironic about this concept is that they are basically protesting because they disagree with the content. So let me get this straight – one person’s free speech isn’t as valuable as another? Is that what I’m supposed to take from this?

The idea that media is some liberal bastion of Communist sympathizers is an old one, but I am tired of it. In fact, due to an ever-shrinking amount of organizations and corporations who own media outlets, the ability to ruffle feathers is probably not what it was even 20 years ago. I would imagine media outlets are probably more conservative now than ever before (in terms of oversight and final say), despite what its critics say. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s easy to tar-and-feather the media – but how would it sound if the same people who called Limbaugh and Back “heros” were in charge? Would it be any better? No, it would probably be worse – not because of any lack of ability, but because of the obvious fact that there would still be a bias, albeit one that the “American patriots” planning to protest Oct. 17 are more comfortable with.

One person on the site commented: “I love the idea of taking the battle to them! If, after this, they still ignore our movement, then it will be obvious to the world that they have taken themselves to “fringe” media status. Pravda. We’ll take the ball and run with it from here.” Ignored? How many reports do I have to watch on TV about people prattling on about Obama’s “socialist agenda?” How many more times do I have to hear reports about Obama’s face being decorated with Hitler mustaches at protests? Or see elected officials get shouted down in heated health care town hall meetings? In short, we get it. You are angry. You are upset. But you are most definitely not ignored, despite how persecuted you feel to the contrary.

In the end, this is less about media bias and more about the fact that the people behind this and affiliated with it are fed up (which I can understand, by the way) with the state of affairs as they see it. But to cloak this in the language of some sort of persecuted and ignored sect of society is disingenuous at best, and the fact that they crave the media’s recognition makes me wonder how serious this “trial” is supposed to be.

Leno's new show: more "sit down" than "stand-up"

Well, after all the hype, Jay Leno’s show really isn’t living up to much of it.

I’ve watched most of the episodes this week, and if I were to ask myself for any comment on them, I would say something like, “Ehh, they were OK.” Leno’s last episode of “The Tonight Show” reminded us all why he was so beloved in the first place, and the last bit he did, when he brought out all of the children who had been born to staff while the show was on the air, he ended with the kind of gentle sweetness that separated him from David Letterman in the night time talk world (and in my opinion made him better to watch). 

Leno’s new show, after an entire summer of hyping, premiered Monday night, and featured Jerry Seinfeld, who hosted an awkward and obviously pre-taped interview segment with Oprah Winfrey, which sort of fell flat. Come to think of it, a lot of the non-studio interviews have fallen flat, from Tom Cruise trying desperately to act like a human to Mel Gibson’s creepy, painful and too-long interview from last night’s episode. If you missed it, let’s just say that Mel’s brain has now fully surrendered to madness, and not the charming, quirky kind.

Some of the segments he carried over from the old show, like the bits where he reads headlines or goes over to people’s houses to ask them random things or dress them up to re-enact TV shows or movies, are still funny. A great bit from last night’s show featured Rachel Harris, most recently in “The Hangover,” doing a really funny and biting bit where she redecorated her entire living room with stuff she bartered people for. During that bit, she was like a less cuddly Tina Fey, but just as funny and self-effacing.

Unfortunately, the same standard isn’t applicable to the rest of Leno’s new show. A particular example of this that comes to mind was from last night’s episode, in which actress Drew Barrymore did two laps on a racetrack specially built for the show in a Ford hybrid. The “gags” on this racetrack included cardboard cutouts of Al Gore and streamer cannons. I don’t want to even guess how much NBC paid for the 40,000 square-feet of track for this bit, but it was really, really pointless – in fact, it almost seemed like NBC was creating an unfunny sort of “vulgar display of power” just to demonstrate A) How much money they have behind this show, and B) How far they will go to please a sponsor (Ford). In either case, we lose.

I think NBC made a mistake. Something’s missing from Leno’s show: heart. I think he's going through the motions, and after nearly 20 years on TV, I probably would be at this point, too. Part of what made his original show so successful is attributable to the fact that he was a pick-me-up after the 10 o’clock news, which is nowhere near as funny (except when you make a game of counting KARE 11’s technical errors, of which there seem to have been many lately). Before, he could pick you up in the way a funny guy can, a sort of way of saying, "Yeah, the world's a mess, but some of it can be funny." Now, you get the half-heartedly giggle at half-baked skits just in time to watch the real news that Leno used to skewer.

In my estimate, this show isn’t going to go away anytime soon. But I also think it’s not going to be anywhere near the runaway success NBC was desperately hoping for.

'Reach for the Stars'

Rounding out the weekend news, rapper Kanye West once again proved what a gentleman he is, Brett Favre threw 110 yards in Sunday’s game, and a man who saved millions of lives died. Which one do you think most people are aware of?
I admit, I hadn’t heard of Norman Borlaug until before this weekend, but after I did, I was amazed that I hadn’t before. Simply put, Borlaug developed a hardier type of grain in the 1960s, which possibly saved millions of lives in India and Asia. He was honored with a Nobel Prize in 1970. According to an Associated Press obituary, one of his favorite sayings was “'Reach for the stars. Although you will never touch them, if you reach hard enough, you will find that you get a little 'star dust' on you in the process.” It sounds really, really dorky, especially in this cynical age, to talk about ‘star dust,’ but this man did just exactly that – he touched the stars when his work ended up saving many, many lives.
Admittedly, there is nothing sexy about grain. Even when measured against other forms of produce, grain is the Chevy Cavalier of contenders: it’s reliable and plain, and gets you from A to B without any fuss. But life as we know it would not be possible without it. And in places like India and Asia, where population combined with limited farmland creates a potential starvation bomb, this is even truer.
I hear no keening for Norman Borlaug. Like I said, I hadn’t heard of him before Saturday, a week after he died. But I do find it sad, to ply a common cliché, that more people could recount Brett Favre, an insignificant (in the scope of history) sports player than they could the life of a man whose efforts helped humanity. Even in his 90s, when an average person may have been tempted to slow down, he still worked.
“We still have a large number of miserable, hungry people and this contributes to world instability,” he said in May 2006 at an Asian Development Bank forum in the Philippines. “Human misery is explosive, and you better not forget that.”
Borlaug – it doesn’t roll off the tongue, and his work wasn’t glamorous. But I think we’d all do well to remember someone who contributed so much to the world, even if many people in that world didn’t have a clue who he was.

Keeping up with Moore's Law

It’s amazing how fast things have changed.
My wife and I are planning a garage sale for sometime soon, if we can get our acts together enough to pull it off. What is interesting to me about some of what we’re getting rid of in the process of preparing for this sale was highly desirable less than a decade ago. Things like the Brother fax machine in the back of my wife’s Jeep, which no doubt cost a pretty chunk of change and turned the business world on their ear when they were introduced in the early 1990s. Now, thanks to technological evolution, it’s about as quaint as a typewriter. When I think about it, this era has moved so quickly, in terms of what is defined as the “cutting edge,” that we all struggle to keep up with it.
I can imagine that this is a fairly recent phenomenon: I can’t imagine that cavemen found themselves upgrading rocks every five years to keep pace with technology. No, I imagine that many of humanity’s first inventions (primitive textiles, knives, etc.) had a pretty long shelf life. Even as recently as 150 years ago, I don’t think trappers and hunters were making a huge rush to get rid of the flintlock and percussion cap rifles that served them so well for so long. No, this is a more recent phenomenon, in my opinion.
Progress isn’t a bad thing, necessarily. Progress and technological innovation is what allows me to bring this message to a potential worldwide audience with the push of a button, something unthinkable even 20 years ago. But with progress comes complication – complication like the $3,000 iMac that I probably couldn’t get more than $25 for now. Complications like the digital converter box in my basement that makes it even harder to get a decent television signal. Complications like the millions of tons of consumer waste generate each year in the pursuit of an upgrade.
Yesterday’s gold is today’s garbage. I don’t see this trend stopping anytime soon, but I think, given the economic slowdown, that it will falter in its pace. Have you ever heard of Moore’s Law? Described on a Wikipedia page, “Since the invention of the integrated circuit in 1958, the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit has increased exponentially, doubling approximately every two years … This has dramatically increased the usefulness of digital electronics in nearly every segment of the world economy. Moore's law describes this driving force of technological and social change in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.”
In time, I can picture that history books will see this entire age as nothing less than a Second Industrial Revolution, when society and the traditional order of things was turned upside down due to new and rapid advances in technology. It may be comfortable to read about – but living through it is less than satisfactory. As I see it, when things settle again, we’re going to see more machines allowing more people to do more work that used to be done by more people, meaning potentially fewer jobs. After all, why pay for another person when you can enable one worker do the work of 10?
Unlike a computer, I can’t double. Not every two years, not every four years, not ever. What I am is likely, in terms of capacity, all I will ever be. I’ve become less than the sum of my parts, someone whose role in the “driving force of technological and social change” has been limited to sighing as he moves his outdated devices to the garage sale table to be cast on the winds of thrift-shopping fate.

Conservatives: Keep Obama out of the classroom!

During a speech to junior high school students in November 1988, then-President Ronald Reagan exhorted the values of low taxes and the American version of self-government, and told kids about the time he received a letter from a man while he was governor of California:

"I got a letter from a man in San Quentin prison, and from the prison he wrote me the letter to tell me he was in there for burglary. He was a burglar. And he said, ``I just want you to know that if [a gun ban] goes through, here in San Quentin there will be celebrating throughout the day and night by all the burglars who are in prison because'' he said, ``we can watch a house we plan to rob for days. We can learn the habits of the people living in that house, to know when is the best time to go in and be a burglar -- rob it.'' He said, ``The only question we can never answer is: Does the man in that house have a gun in the drawer by his bed?'' He said, ``That's a risk we have to run.'' He said, ``If you tell us in advance they won't have a gun in that drawer by their bed,'' he said, ``the burglars in here will be celebrating forevermore.''

I have no memory of of this particular speech, and neither does the rest of America, apparently, as conservative pundits have been spouting off for days about how this represents Obama's desire to brainwash America's children into wanting socialized medicine and government abortions.

I, for one, think the reaction this planned speech has gotten ("They do this type of thing in North Korea and the former Soviet Union ... very cultish" - Andrea Tantarnos, FOX News) is completely misreading the message. The prepared text of Obama's speech can be found online, and after reading, it, I found that I approved of its basic message of hard work and planning educational goals. I find this a marked contrast to Reagan's speech, with its conservative anthems of low taxes and no gun control. I also find it difficult to believe that a junior high student, as the remarks illustrate, would care enough to ask a question about whether or not "Saturday Night Specials," small, cheap handguns, should be banned. I can almost hear the grandfatherly chuckle in Reagan's response:

"Well, I don't have very much of a quarrel with the very cheap weapon and
so forth that makes it so easy for the wrong people to have a gun. I would like to see us
concentrate on what I described in California: of making sure that anyone who buys a
gun is a responsible citizen and not bent on crime."

Can you imagine what would happen if Obama's speech even contained the word "gun?" Conservatives would be howling for blood, and I can envision countless Americans racking their shotguns just in case Mr. O wants to take them away.

In short, this whole brouhaha is scandalous - not because of what it is, but because of what it isn't. If we've gotten so polarized politically that a president's speech asking children to work hard in school is something worth fighting against, then what is the point? If our two-party system, which it seems to have become, is so hell-bent on tearing the opposition down that everything else, including decency and common sense on both sides, goes by the wayside, then what is the point of even having the system in the first place? Is this endless and pointless political one-upmanship the sort of activity the Founding Fathers had in mind?

Death with a spray can

Standing above the yellow jacket’s nest with a can of Raid in my hand, I towered like an omnipotent god. I had, to paraphrase Robert Oppenheimer’s famous reiteration of the Bhagavad-Gita, “become Death.”
I saw the nest a few weeks ago, after I’d mowed right over it without even knowing it was there. Standing outside talking to the neighbors over the fence, I noticed motion out of the corner of my eye, and turned to see yellow flits in the distance, coming and going out of a hole in the ground. I slowly walked over to within five feet of it, and saw the hole. It was about two inches across, and Yellow Jackets diligently exited and entered, not taking exception to my presence.
I always joke that one of my pet peeves is flying insects. Twenty years ago, they became the bane of my childhood when I stepped on a wasp nest in some loose grass clippings while trying to reach a glider. I looked down and saw wasps crawling up my little legs, stinging and biting me. I screamed, and ran two laps around the house at full speed trying to get away from them. I was terrified of anything that flew for the next 10 years or so, which proved embarrassing, as the simple sight of a bee or hornet near me would cause me to freeze mid-sentence.
Eventually, I grew over my fear, and took great delight in destroying the pests wherever I found them. I would ambush bumblebees with a Super Soaker, and look in amazement at the naked black bug a direct hit would leave behind. Hit with a powerful enough stream, I could blast every hair off their bodies. I would terminate nests with extreme prejudice, taking great delight in my complete superiority over a subspecies. In time, my anger faded, and I stopped delighting in these activities, as I realized that life is something sacred, despite the fact that it can sting you, and that I shouldn’t seek out what I dislike in order to destroy it.
I was almost sad walking up to the yellow jackets’ nest yesterday afternoon. They were, as before, oblivious to my presence. I thought back to a podcast I’d been listening to earlier in the day about General Curtis LeMay, the man who ordered the firebombing of Tokyo during World War II, and how the yellow jackets, like the 100,000 Japanese killed in the first firebombing raid over Tokyo, had no idea that this single visitor was the harbinger of their impending doom.
I came back that night, and emptied the entire can into the hole without ceremony or apology. I’ll dig it up when I get home from work tonight, just to make sure I got it all, and I’m sure I’ll discover dozens, and maybe hundreds, of dead yellow jackets – a sight that used to thrill me, but now, reminds me only that life is fleeting, at times cruel, and that there is always someone bigger that may have plans to stomp or spray you.