P.S. A Column On Things

Paul Schindler, Winner of the 1974 William L. Stewart Award

In June of 1974, I was given the William L. Stewart award for contributions to extra-curricular activities at MIT. I was looking at it the other day and wondered if it was listed anywhere on the Internet. According to Google, there is no list of winners. If you search for William L. Stewart Award, you will find winners who have it on their web page or their resume. Well, now it is on my blog, in the event anyone is ever interested. I won it for my work at The Tech, the MIT student newspaper.

Gratitude and Thanksgiving

For 18 years, I have been running variations of the same Thanksgiving column, listing the things for which I am thankful. A variety of events during the last several years led me to stop posting regular blog entries and start writing  regular entries in a gratitude journal, which got me to thinking of the difference between thankful  and grateful. Google isn't much help:

Grateful: feeling or showing an appreciation of kindness; thankful.
Thankful: pleased and relieved, grateful

So, basically, it treats the words as synonymous. I do still give thanks for my health and my family. I am also grateful to have them in my life. I am grateful to be of use, to my family and others. I am grateful for the love I get and the love I have an opportunity to give. I am grateful that my medical problems are all treatable. Every day, I am grateful to be here, because every minute I have had since January 2007 has been a gift. I cherish that gift. I don't need Clarence the Angel to show me that this is a wonderful life; unlike George Bailey, I have never for a moment doubted that the world is a better place for my being in it. I give thanks for my blessings every morning, and expect to do so for the rest of my life. And, yes, especially on Thanksgiving Day.

Finally, if you feel life has been dealing to you from the bottom of the deck, I recommend the practice of keeping a gratitude journal. Write down one or two things each day for which you are grateful. Big or small, serious or silly. You may find it helps you keep things in perspective; I know it has had that effect on me. Going back and rereading it sometimes can be an interesting and rewarding activity.

For all of you who are still left to read this now-occasional blog, Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving

If this sounds familiar, it is because, in the great tradition of Herb Caen and Jon Carroll (both now gone from the Chronicle and nearly forgotten), I am recycling my 12 previous Thanksgiving messages from 18years.

This year we will be in Orinda, California, my wife and my older daughter and her husband, and my nephew and his beloved. My younger daughter will be back for a Saturday Thanksgiving at her sister’s.

I know I have a lot to be thankful for. I am enjoying retirement, I have my health, such as it is, and I have my family. I can't imagine why I would bother getting out of bed each morning if not for my wife and my two girls.

My most important role is as husband to Vicki and father to my daughters.

The years I spent full-time with my girls are priceless. The time I spend with them now is priceless as well.

Not everyone can work in a home office, as I did for two decades.

But no matter where you work, the next time you have to make the tough call between the meeting and the soccer game, go to the soccer game. You'll never regret it. I am thankful for my family. Be thankful for yours.

Also give thanks for your friends and your good fortune. Spread that good fortune around in any way you can. I have much to be thankful for this holiday season, as I have had every year of my life. Another friend slipped out of this world during 2016, and I will miss him as I will miss my other departed friends.

I am thankful that I have a loving brother. I am thankful for my loving and understanding wife, and for the two most wonderful daughters I could have imagined, both of them turning into vibrant, intelligent young women before my very eyes.

I am thankful for every sunrise and sunset I get to see, every moment I get to be in, every flower I try so desperately to stop and smell. I am thankful that I can move closer every day to living a life in balance. Every morning, I am grateful to be alive. Not a bad way to start the day. For reasons I don't want to detail, I am extremely grateful just to be alive.

I am thankful for 250 pounds; down 50 from my peak. I am thankful for the fact that I will still be near that weight next year at Thanksgiving.

Every week at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Orinda, the former vicar concluded the service with this homily. The provenance seems uncertain; the Internet lists several attributions. All I know is, it touches me every time I hear it and is sound advice for life: The new vicar has discarded it, but I haven’t.

"Remember that life is short and we have too little time to gladden the hearts of those who travel the way with us. So be quick to be kind, make haste to love, and may the blessing of God be with you now and always."

It has been with me. I hope it is with you. In the meantime, I am thankful, finally, for each and every one of you reading this column. I hope you have a great Thanksgiving!

This and That

This is a funny talking dog video.

Check out Donald and Hobbes.

Daniel Dern found this great pun in the funnies.

In Brexit news: The single best summary of Brexit. The funniest comment is this "Hitler" screed, sent to me by Robert Malchman. I am apparently the last to hear of this meme, since the London Daily Telegraph rounded up the best of these screeds in 2009. Just because I (and maybe you) are behind a meme doesn't mean it isn't still funny.

WTF

Why yes, I did give up this column. And despite three weekly Thursday publications in a row, I really don't think it is back for good. But who knows; I never said never, I just said "not weekly."

Meanwhile, in another part of town

 

If you were to download a recent New York Times Book Review podcast, and listen at the 43:48 mark, you might well hear a familiar voice describing his experience with Have Space Suit, Will Travel by Robert Heinlein.

Daniel Dern tipped me to this:

‘The West Wing Weekly,’ a Podcast With a Ringer By ROBERT ITO Joshua Malina and Hrishikesh Hirway, the podcast’s co-hosts, have set an ambitious goal: discuss all 154 episodes of one of TV’s most beloved shows.

Trying To Be Serious During The Primary

For the flip side of my story about failing in the general election at Beaver Boys’ State with a humorous speech that won me my party’s nomination, here’s Kevin Sullivan’s experience:

I tried a 'serious' speech in my own multi-person primary  for the Mass Boys State in the summer of 1968 which was held at UMass, Amherst. I had the misfortune to be from Town #1 and thus, spoke first. The remaining 11 speakers a) tore my speech apart (so much for introducing substance in an election where you only get to speak once), and b) were more humorous and memorable  (admittedly, a lesson I learned the hard way). I did not get my party's nomination.

On the flip side, I did end up running for the Senate seat which was not chosen by a general election, but by a panel judging a written essays on addressing national and world problems. I was chosen as the #1 alternate.

Wholesale vs. Retail Politics: UMOC Edition

Sometimes, the lessons we think we are learning turn out not to be the most large-scale lessons we could learn. For example, in 1976, two years after the events described, I wrote this:

Dignity? I proved I had none during my campaign for Ugliest Man On Campus, a charity campaign at MIT. It was fall of my senior year. It was not my idea to run really, although I certainly had the chance to withdraw if I wanted to. But the staff of the student newspaper, The Tech, entered me and knew I wouldn’t back down. My best fund-raising trick (I lacked the guts to walk around and ask people for money, I had to have a trick) was selling people a chance to throw a cream pie at me (actually, they were shaving cream, just like on television).

My then girlfriend thought it was an awfully cheap and undignified way to run the campaign and that it heaped unnecessary indignity on me. She also disliked the demeaning newspaper ad my managing editor ran several times in The Tech. She said somehow the other candidates managed to maintain their dignity and pride and I did not.

Do you see the lesson hidden in this story that is relevant to today? I do. In fact, I have been describing this incident for years as teaching me that retail politics work, wholesale politics don't. [It wasn't until I started typing up my 1976 journal that I realized I had thought, at the time, it was a lesson about dignity]. While I was running newspaper ads and holding [pie-throwing] "rallies" in the lobby of Building 10, my opponents were applying old-fashioned shoe leather, going from door to door asking people directly to put money in their tins. And I was beaten like a drum. In the years since, I have seen multiple political campaigns in which someone tries to win wholesale. Sometimes that happens. Usually, retail and personal wins in politics. I suspect that will happen again this year.

This and That

Dan Grobstein shared this touching tweet with me:

Nick Groke (@nickgroke)

6/17/16, 11:31 PM Let me tell you a story about The Denver Post, a place I love like a family (which means sometimes I hate-love it)... #newsmatters

He also shared this New York Times story, with accompanying comment:

Editorial says Kosovo has "an education system that does not encourage critical thinking." “Saudi Arabia has spent heavily to promote the radical form of Islam that inspired 9/11 and now inflames the Islamic State. Tiny Kosovo is a victim.”

Is part of the problem causing young people to believe the radical teachings.

I'm just wondering how much teaching to the test in this country hurts critical thinking. You're a former teacher. Any comments?

Yes, I do have comments. Well, just one really. We don’t teach anywhere near enough critical thinking. In fact, we teach too much obedience to authority. It is, I fear, a residue from the days when the purpose of school was to create a docile workforce for the new factories that were springing up.

Daniel Dern passes along an article by a West Wing actress who ended up in Washington for real.

 

A Primary Is Not A General Election: A Political Anecdote from 1969

In 1969, after my junior year in high school, I was chosen by Benson High to participate in Beaver Boys State, a week-long summer program supported by the American Legion which was designed to teach young men about civics.

Elections for “governor” were part of the program (which still exists to this day). During the multi-candidate primary election, I gave a humorous speech (I was experienced; I had given numerous humorous speeches at Benson assemblies) and designated myself the “edible can man.” (Don’t ask) That night, the other people in my dorm woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me I had won my party’s nomination!

The general election was the next day (now THAT’s a short campaign). Like one of the presidential candidates this year, I concluded, “it worked in the primary, why not the general.” On a stage with the other major party candidate and an independent—just the three of us—I gave the same speech again. This time: crickets. I came in third in the election, and the independent won. Many of my fellow Boys Stater’s felt the independent won because of my lackluster performance.

It turns out, I realized rather quickly, that “look at me” tactics work fine in a multi-candidate primary field. But when you get to the general election, and the field is winnowed down, the electorate expects you to get serious. I didn’t, and I paid the price. We can only hope that history repeats itself. And don’t you wish there was only a day between the primary and the general!