Admit It, Most of You Agree….

Admit It, Most of You Agree….

Trigger warning: Some or probably all of the opinions expressed below my cause you to seek out a safe zone or demand the writer be shouted down. Please be apprised of that danger before deciding to read on. My intent is to rile as many of you as possible. Send protests to bentleythegermanshepherd.com. If you would like to protest in person, he will deal with you.

• I fully appreciate some women’s desire to retain their identity by not merely forsaking their names to take on their husbands’ names. But I find the oft-employed hyphenation—Rebecca Horowitz-Chang—to be no better. Why can’t a couple be simply Susan Smithers and Paul Columbo?
• The homeless in the north seem to gripe about the cold and the snow less than the upper middle class. In the winter, the north gets cold. If you don’t like it, and you live in Moosejaw (I apologize for that), or Edina, or Trenton, take out a compass, look for “S,” and move in that direction. Even birds are smart enough to do that (except, apparently, Canadian geese, and I once again apologize).
• When you are in a buffet line, and you deem it your right to choose each vegetable, piece of rigatoni, and dollop of mustard as if you were choosing diamonds at Tiffany, I feel I have the right to spill the blue cheese dressing down your back.
• In the Catholic Church, in which I am a member, I find that the bishops who hid the abuse of priests are criminals and should be prosecuted. I think the same about what appears to be hundreds of people in show business who knew of the Weinsteins and Lauers, of the O’Reillys and the Roses, and of all the others. They, too, should be prosecuted as complicit and aiding and abetting a crime.
• The Cuban Missile Crisis was averted, not so much because of John F. Kennedy’s actions but because, underneath Khrushchev’s bluster, he wasn’t a lunatic. Neither is the guy in North Korea. In fact he’s looking quite clever understanding the imbalance of power in the world.
• Please don’t tell me all cultures are equal. The Russians engaged in a massive doping conspiracy which was state-sponsored in order to unfairly win sports prizes in the Olympics. The Nazis tried to cheat in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. (Read The Boys in the Boat.) Those are amoral cultures.
• When a semi-final, national championship college football game winds up 54-48 with over a thousand yards of offense, doesn’t it make you wonder if truly championship teams should have championship defenses?
• News shows that put a reporter on the street in front of a government building because the story is a about a meeting inside are borderline imbecilic. You can’t report that from the studio? (And, for that matter, putting a reporter at risk in gale-force winds in a storm for an outdoor report is no better than a circus sideshow. But, it’s all about ratings, not really news.)
• I admire the Kennedy Center Honors every year, and always agree with the merit of the recipients. But watching most of that live audience in their seats try to respond rhythmically to LL Cool J’s music and the artists who were honoring him on stage was just painful.
• Airlines are not sympathetic to protests about smaller coach seats and disappearing amenities (you now have to pay for the overhead storage on some flights) because people want cheap fares more than they want comfortable seats. That is the economic reality. If you want to fly to Europe for $149 or cross country for $89 don’t expect to put your feet up and have someone serve you a meal. Pretty soon they’ll be selling standing room, and people will be buying it.
• When can we establish that good service does not mean a friendship? I don’t need the waiter, the bellman, the front desk clerk, or the masseuse to start asking me about my trip, my family, my experiences. I don’t need to know your name. Let’s not confuse quiet service with overbearing inquiry. (I told a yakking waiter in Ocean Prime Restaurant in Boston that the meal I had was the best of its kind, ever, and to tell the chef. He continued his incessant chatter and then actually asked, “Was the meal prepared to your liking?” My “liking” is that you get away from me while I eat.)
• My estimate is that there may be one intelligent article posted on Linkedin per thousand.