The SoapBoxers

I’ve been juggling a few balls lately – so what is the status?

I am happy to announce that Tip of the Iceberg and other Stories is complete!  The 99 page PDF will contain copies of every of my fiction stories this year, as well as a 5500+ word story Tip of the Iceberg.  Tip of the Iceberg will only appear in this PDF.  The only bad news is that this is one of the rare occasions when we will be charging for content.  However, our most loyal customers will receive a price break.

How long did it take to write Tip of the Iceberg?  About six months, I guess.  I started kicking around ideas for the anchor story for the 4th volume of my fiction around the time volume 3 hit the shelves.  I generated and abandoned quite a few ideas along the way.  While I’m confident that I settled on the right story for this volume, it’s conceivable that some of the other ideas will become the capstone stories in future volumes or that scaled down stories will find their way onto the blog.

I also finished the audio version of Tip of the Iceberg.  This is the audio for just the one story – not the entire collection.  The audio runs about 30 minutes and features Kosmo as the reader.

I will be selling this collection in three different ways:

• The PDF of Tip of the Iceberg and other Stories
• The MP3 audio version of Tip of the Iceberg
  
• A combo version that contains the PDF and the audio, at a reduced price

The official launch date will be on August 12.  As always, I’ll provide a few hundred words as teaser in order to lure you in and fork over a few of your hard earned bucks.  I expect the pricing to be about 15 cents per story.  So I’m trying not to nickel and dime you too much.  Oh, wait – 15 cents is a nickel and a dime.  So I guess I AM trying to nickel and dime you.

I’ve also been working on Mountains, Meadows, and Chasms, my entry for the Iowa Short Fiction Award.  The mountains, meadows, and chasms are not literal but rather metaphors for life – the good times, the bad times, and the everyday experiences.  Entries for the contest must be 150 pages, and I had no trouble collecting enough of my work to hit that page count.  After removing some stories that I wasn’t particularly proud of, the page count stands at 236.  This could fluctuate slightly, but at this point, I’m pretty much set on those stories being included.

During the next few months, I plan to scale down to six articles a week in The Soap Boxers.  This should allow me to focus a bit more attention on my novel, but unfortunately has been languishing lately.  I’d love to get more written in the novel, but I simply haven’t had time in recent months.  Hopefully skipping an article every week will free up at least a bit of time.

Saturday marked the passing of baseball’s trade deadline.  From now through the end of the season, players must pass through waivers before being traded.  The waivers process is to complex to fully explain in the midst of this article – suffice it to say that others team can claim the players during the process in order to mess up a trade. 

The Houston Astros went into full dismantle mode, crippling their offense and pitching by sending Lance Berkman and Roy Oswalt away in trades.  Berkman went to the Yankees, in a classic case of the rich getting richer.

The Oswalt deal was a head scratcher for me.  I don’t blame the Phillies for targeting Oswalt – lots of teams were pursuing the Astros ace at the deadline.  The aspect that had me scratching my head was that they had just dealt away Cliff Lee at the time they acquired Roy Halladay.  Why jumping through all the hoops of trading Lee away and then acquiring Oswalt when they could have just retained Lee.  At the time that the Phillies were rumored to be acquiring Halladay, I was very intrigued at the thought of Halladay and Lee in the same rotation, and was a bit puzzled when Lee was shipped out.  I wonder if this game of musical pitchers is going to end up costing them a playoff spot?  How many more wins could the Phillies have had in the first half with Lee in the rotation?  Having said this, I do think that Oswalt is the better pitcher.

The Yankees made a couple smaller moves, picking up veterans Austin Kearns and Kerry Wood for the stretch run.  Both are players who were once rising stars whose stars are now fading.  Nonetheless, the mention of Wood’s name always begs the question: How much wood could Kerry Wood carry if Kerry Wood could carry wood?  And that other question – did Dusty Baker ruin the acreers of Wood and Mark Prior by overextending them in games?

The Rangers were a team that pushed all their chips into the middle of the table.  Texas acquired the aforementioned Cliff Lee earlier in July to bolster their rotation.  At the deadline, they firmed up their infield by picking up Jorge Cantu and Cristian Guzman.  The Rangers might not play in the AL East, but look for them to be a tough out in the playoffs.

On Friday night, my Rockies hammered the Chicago Cubs 17-2.  The margin was just 5-2 entering the bottom of the 8th inning.  The first two Rockies got hits.  The next two hitters made outs.  Then the floodgates opened.  The Rockies got eleven straight, then two walks, before finally making the third out.  Eighteen batters came to the plate and the Rockies scored twelve runs.  The eleven straight hits were an all-time Major League record – and bear in mind that Major League Baseball has been around since 1876.

You may ask yourself – what are the odds of this happening in a game?  Well, with Kosmo in the house, you don’t need to ponder the answer.  Well, if you have a team consisting entirely of .300 hitters (which is virtually impossible), the odds of turning two consecutive at bats into hits is just 9%, or .3^2.  The odds of eleven straight hits would be .3^11 – or one chance in 564,503.  If your team consist of all .260 hitters (much more likely), the odds are just one in 2,724,540.

This does, of course, assume that each at bat is an independent event, which isn’t the case.  Subsequent batters may learn from the experience of the first batters, and pitchers may lose confidence in their breaking pitches and throw more fastballs.  This would cause these odds to shift a bit more in the favor of the hitters.

Of course, these are just the odds at bats turning into hits.  An at bat in a trip to the plate that results in either an out or a hit (statisically, a defensive error counts as an our for the hitter, which sucks).  The thing that made the Rockies hit parade even more unlikely was that it was not interrupted by any walks – the walks came later (a trip to the plate that results in a walk is not charged to the batter as an at bat, but is merely included in the more broad classification of plate appearances).  I can’t even calculate the odds of this happening – because the pitcher can easily stop such a streak by intentionally walking a batter.

On Saturday night, Carlos Gonzalez hit for the cycle against the Cubs.  This means that he had a single, double, triple, and home run in the same game.  Gonzalez completed the cycle in dramatic fashion – bashing a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 9th.

From time to time I wax poetic about emotions. Perhaps it is because I am aging, or perhaps everyone gets sentimental from every now and again. This is a discussion of love and the many forms it takes; I declare seven.

The first love that I can remember was so far back in my life that I cannot remember when it started. That love I shared with my parents. My mother’s embrace; caring, soothing, always there. My father’s protecting aura; constant, strong and safe. I live far from my parents now, but they are always close.

That love is enduring, it can never be broken.

The second love I recognized was the love of family. My brother, sister, grand parents; always part of my life, even when I wanted to get away. The family is strength. They build up and bring back down to Earth. The greatest joys of my life were in November of 1990, September of 1992 and January of 1996 with the births of my children. The heaviest loss in my life was the death of my brother. November of 1992 was the lowest month of my life.

That love is enduring, it can never fade.

Then I learned to love my friends. Voluntarily putting my emotions in the hands of other was a challenge. The relationships that I have enjoyed have been so fulfilling. Friends who I reconnect with time after time. Each time I have had to move, the separation of those relationships has been painful. When I moved in 1978 as a child, those pains were deep. I searched out several of those friends to reconnect through summer trips and eventually inclusion in my marriage celebration.

That love is enduring, it is a gift of self.

As I moved into the world, and became independent, I learned of self love. I thought I could stand alone. I fought the good fights, when I had to. I loved life and learned to believe in myself. The loss of that love is the loss of self.

That love has to endure, it is self fulfilling.

In the fall of 1987, I learned of a new love. I gave my whole being. In the summer of 1988, I learned what it meant to cleave to another, to cease to be two and become one. I love my wife so deeply that I do not know how we will go on when one of us has passed.

That love is enduring, it makes me complete.

Through out my life, I have learned why and how America is special. In the summer of 1969, I saw the courage, ingenuity and perseverance of an entire country come to fruition on the Sea of Tranquility. In the Fall of 2001, I saw what separated us from a large portion of the world. We care for strangers, we unite in disaster.

That love endures, it is what makes us great.

Although I have been Roman Catholic all of my life, it was only in name. The care of my children, the desire to separate wrong from right, the need for a higher authority, drove me back to the church. The love of God is all love combined. The stranger becomes you neighbor, your neighbor becomes your brother, your country becomes something to fight for.

That love is enduring, it is freely given, all you have to do is receive it.

No, we’re not going to talk about the impact of discrimination on victims.  Nor or we going to talk about the effects of programs intended to level the playing field.

Instead, we’ll take a look from the other side – what is the impact of those doing the discrimination?

When you discriminate in the workplace, you are immediately throwing out qualified candidates.  Sometimes you might even be throwing out the most qualified candidate.  What does this cost you?  Money.

I really can’t grasp to concept of discriminating in the workplace.  I am a team coordinator for my company.  When we bring new people on board, the main focus is to add competent people.  There’s no hidden agenda to add only Caucasians, or men, or tall people.  It’s all about the skills.  And why not?  Competent people make your life easier, regardless of their gender, race, or sexual orientation.

For decades, the professional sports leagues were for whites only.  Then pioneers like baseball’s Branch Rickey realized that there was a large untapped potential.  Rickey signed Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson to break the color barrier, and other teams followed suit.  Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947; the last team to integrate were the Red Sox when they added Pumpsie Green in 1959.

Even after the racial barrier were broken, stereotypes prevailed.  African-American players were not allowed to play the more cerebral positions (quarterback in football and pitcher in baseball) – with the reasoning that the race simply didn’t have the intelligence necessary for those positions.  Some teams were quicker than others to realize that this was hogwash (Bob Gibson?) – and those teams reaped the benefits of being a step ahead of the curve.

As pretty much everyone knows, I am a huge sports fan.  This really helped foster an idea of racial equality (or at least ambivalence) at an early age.  My first introduction to players was often on the radio.  The players were simply a name and a stat line.  I liked the players with the good stats and disliked the bums with the bad stats – race had nothing to do with my decision.

Not even writers have been immune from discrimination.  British novelist Mary Ann Evans wrote under the pen name of George Eliot to make sure that her works were taken seriously.  More recently, a female writer on Men With Pens used the pseudonym James Chartrand for the same reason.

The world of politics in the US has long been dominated by white men.  Inroads have been in recent decades, but minorities and women are still under-represented in the federal government.  This, of course, defies all logic.  We’re not even talking about “haves” and “have nots” in these cases.  We’re often talking about people with impressive academic credentials.  Why would an African-American woman with a law degree from Harvard be less qualified than a Caucasian male with a law degree from Yale?  (Unless, of course, you’re of the opinion that Harvard is vastly superior to Yale).  Certainly, they have are more alike than different.

Is there still room for a glass ceiling in the 21st century?  Certainly.  But it should be used appropriately – to keep the incompetent from rising to positions of power.

The ball sailed high into the air before smashing into the window of a house situated deep in right field of the makeshift diamond.

Jeffrey Snyder grabbed his glove and prepared to make a hasty exit to avoid the wrath of the homeowner.

“Wait a minute,” came a shout from over his shoulder. Jeff stopped in his tracks and turned to face his classmate, Ryan Green.

“It’s OK,” explained Green. “The old lady that lives there is really cool. She just gives us the balls back without yelling at us.”

Snyder hesitated. Could this be true? Any time an adult had caught one of his friends breaking a window, the whole group had been yelled at and forced to pay to fix the window. He decided that Green wouldn’t lie to him. He turned back around and joined the group and they walked toward the house.

Ryan Green took a step forward and rang the bell. A moment later, a woman answered the door.

“I’m sorry, Miss Marshall. We broke your window again.”

Kathleen Marshall looked at the group of young boys. “Which of you boys hit the ball?” she asked.

Jeffrey Snyder hesitated for a moment, and then spoke. “It was me, ma’am. I’m very sorry.”

“You a righty or a lefty?”

“Uh, I’m righthanded, ma’am.”

“That’s a good piece of hitting, then,” she remarked. “You took the ball the opposite way. You can’t expect to succeed by pulling everything.”

“Yes, ma’am,” replied a dumbfounded Snyder.

“Go back to your game, boys. Don’t you worry none about this window – I can get it fixed easily enough.”

The relieved group muttered thanks to Kathleen and they raced back toward the diamond to continue their game.

Kathleen Marshall made a note to call her handyman to get the glass in the window replaced. She could expect to replace the glass at least a couple of times each year, as well as suffering several dents to her siding.

Marshall put the cost of the repair out of her mind for a moment as she watched the boys continue the game. It was a beautiful day in June, and these were the true boys of summer – the kids who played the game for the sheer enjoyment.

Kathleen thought back on her own son, Edward. Edward’s favorite toy as an infant had been a plush baseball, and he spent countless hours swinging away at a ball on a tee in his younger days. When he was finally old enough to play with real bats and balls, he spent summer days such as this playing baseball from sun up to sun down. Many times, Kathleen had to walk down to the diamond to drag him home for supper.

Kathleen also remembered the last year. Edward fighting the leukemia that ravaged his body. Every day, he listened to baseball games on the portable radio next to his bed. His love of the game gave him the strength to continue his fight.

The she remembered that long ago fall day. The baseball season had wrapped up, and there was no baseball to listen to on the radio. Edward managed to stumble across The Natural playing on one of the movie channels. He drifted off the sleep as Robert Redford smacked the mighty blast that froze the clock at a moment in time.

Frozen in time, too, was the smile on Edward’s face. It was the final time that he would drift off to sleep.

Kathleen looked back toward the boys playing baseball and took a moment to dab a tear from her eye. Some of her friends said that she allowed the kids to take advantage of her and that she should make them pay to fix her window when they broke it. Kathleen knew that she could never do that. She would never do anything that would chase away these boys – the boys who kept alive the memories of her Edward with their joyful baseball games.

The summer is getting into full force of triple digit temps and the political landscape is soon to start to boil over once again as elections start to near. However, this month I really couldn’t find a topic that has not been rehashed over and over by now to draw my interest to encompass a whole article so instead this month is kind of a hodge podge of different things.

Over the past few weeks on Facebook I had noticed one of the little ads that op up for something called the Coffee Party. At first I thought it was just some parody, but in fact it is an actual movement trying to get underway to counter the Tea Party movement. They can be found at http://www.coffeepartyusa.com/.

Heck they even have their own pseudo-political party thing already going on with their own convention to be held in September. I wish them all the luck as I fully support their mission, but I think it will never pick up the steam of the Tea party as hate is always an easier message to draw the masses to than cooperation. Be a “real” American, choose coffee over tea.

Speaking of the Tea Party, the congresswoman from my district and Tea Party caucus member Lynn Jenkins (R-KS 2nd) faces a “challenge” from her right in State Senator Dennis Pyle. Pyle’s main assertion is that Jenkins is a moderate and that element of the Republican Party is at fault for their demise.

The assertion that Jenkins is a moderate would have been true prior to her election in 2008, but there is nothing moderate about the tea party movement and those who have to follow their political game. Jenkins is one of only three women in the newly minted House Tea Party Caucus. So I don’t see much of a threat to her in the primary, but it is funny how the Tea Party always feels the need to prove they are more nuts than the other. Sadly the primary challenge will be the only real challenge for Jenkins in what usually is a competitive district, allowing Jenkins to continue her search for “a great white hope” to beat Obama in 2012 from inside the beltway and not send her packing home.

More amusing is that her reelection will make her the senior house member from Kansas as the two other Republicans are in the state’s most heated political show in another “I am more Tea Party than you!” battle between Congressmen Todd Tihart and Jim Moran. The lone Democrat from Kansas, Dennis Moore, a house member since 1990, is not seeking reelection and his wife is running instead.

An amusing side note is that tea partier Tihart’s 4th disrict seat has a decent chance of going to the Democrat this year and probably to the chagrin of the tea partiers it is the minority candidate Raj Goyle that has the best shot.

Shifting just to the west of Kansas, Colorado is getting ready once again to have a “personhood” amendment on the ballot this year. That is not the interesting thing though, it’s been something they have been doing on the ballot for a while now. However this time they have brought in Alan Keyes to do ads portraying a slave and correlating the relationship of fetuses and abortion in this country to slavery and seeking to be free.

It’s another laughable thing from the right, although it is better to take note these days as the nutjob right is more the mainstream right than the fringe. However the question I pose to them is if you are going to start declaring personhood begins at conception then that is where citizenship would also begin, right? So I guess we’ll have to start determining exactly where conception took place and if you don’t have proper documentation you are not a citizen?

And to conclude this month’s post it appears that U.S. District Court judge Susan Bolton will be the next in line of “activist judges” to be slammed by the right for going against the right’s political choice in her blocking of the provisions of Arizona SB1070 from going into effect for now. Too bad activism from the bench only counts when it is going against the grain of “conservative” thought and not to everything in general – for example the Citizens United ruling in the Supreme Court. Anyways that is all I have for this month. That’s all I have for this month on the 100th day of the gulf oil spill and until next time keep looking for those bad nuts out there. [Editor’s note: today is the 101st day of the oil spill, but The Angry Squirrel submitted the article yesterday.]

The Soap Boxers, as well as other domains within the realm of Kosmo, is hosted by Dreamhost.  I stumbled across Dreamhost quite by accident.  When I began blogging, my friend Lazy Man took me under his wing and provided my with free hosting under his own Dreamhost account.

So, what do you get with Dreamhost?

Domain Registration – First, you get one free domain registration with each hosting account.  This is something that a lot of web hosts charge extra for.  As a bonus, you can opt for anonymous registration for no additional cost (which, again, many hosts charge extra for).  Additional domains can be registered for $9.95 per year with no strings attached.

Unlimited everything (well, most things, anyway) –

• You get unlimited space for your web site’s files.  Additionally, you get an additional 50 GB of backup space for non-site files.
• You can host as many domains on one account as you wish.  For example, I host The Soap Boxers, Hyrax Publications, and a personal web site – and it’s the same fixed cos for hosting (although there is a registration fee for each domain).
• You can created unlimited MySql databases.
• Unlimited bandwidth

Essentially, this means that you won’t be charged overage fees for exceeding space or bandwidth limitations – since there are no limitations.

Email – You can set up email in a variety of different ways.  I have mine configured to use Google as the email provider.  I have my own custom email address (kosmo@observingcasually.com), but use Google’s POP server to check mail through my desktop email client.  I can also choose to go to Google’s web site to check my mail.  The web-based mail through Google is just gMail customized to use your own domain name.

One-click installs – Dreamhost has “one click” installs for a variety of software packages.  I have used the one-click install for WordPress a number of times, and also have used it for Zen Cart on the Hyrax Publication site.  That’s the tip of the iceberg, though – the option also exist for these software packages: Gallery, PhpGedView, Pligg, dotProject, Moodle, Joomla, phpBB, MediaWiki, WebCalendar, Advanced Poll, and Trac (note: I don’t use any of these other software packages, so I can’t vouch for how well they are integrated).  You still have to configure the software, of course – so you may need more than one click to get started.  It’s a good feeling knowing that you’re not going to run into a weird installation error when you try to install a software package.

Overall ease of use – I’ve used a lot of web hosting services over the years.  Most of them tend to use CPanel.  I’m really not overly fond of CPanel and was happy to see that Dreamhost doesn’t use it.  You can use the Dreamhost panel to use FTP and MySql, but you can also access these functions natively.  It’s also a cinch to do things like add sub-domains (blog.mydomain.com, photos.mydomain.com, topsecret.mydomain.com, etc).

Social responsibility – Dreamhost offers free hosting to non-profits (501(c)(3) organizations) and also touts being a green organization.  Some of the environmental friendliness they claims is a result of purchasing renewable energy credits or offsets.  Of course, this doesn’t really reduce the energy a company uses (which Dreamhost admits), but does provide funding for green projects.  Beyond the purchasing of credits, Dreamhost does make an effort to use power-efficient processors and take other steps to reduce energy usage.

Upgrades – In addition to the base plan (which costs $9.95 per month if you sign up for one year, or as little as $5.95 monthly if you sign up for ten years), you can purchase upgrades such as private servers and static IP addresses.

Surely there are some problems with Dreamhost, right?  A few months ago, there were some issues with a few outages.  They weren’t particularly long (an hour or so), but could be frustrating when they occurred.  This is something that every hosting company is going to experience at some level, of course – nobody has 100.00% uptime.  On the bright side, there hasn’t been an outage in quite a while.

Interested in signing up with Dreamhost?  Sign up using this link (or by clicking the ads), and you’ll get the first year of service for just $3 per month ($36 for the first year).  Yep, I do get an affiliate commission if you sign up.  If you’ve been waiting to jump in the water and create your own blog (or other site), take this opportunity and take the first step toward success!

When LeBron James left the Cavaliers for the Heat as a free agent, I was disappointed, along with much of the country.  I would have loved to see him win a title with his hometown Cavs.

However, I have been surprised at the amount of backlash against not only LeBron, but the NBA’s new Holy Trinity as a whole.  If you listen to some radio shows, it sounds like LeBron, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosch coming together is a great sin against humanity.  We simply can’t have all of the NBA’s stars gravitating to a handful of teams, can we?

This strikes me as very odd.  The ultimate goal in team sport is to win a title.  These three players put themselves in prime position to win a title.  If there are no other teams that can challenge them (at least in the East), is this their fault?

In an era where players (and agents) seem to enjoy squeezing every last dollar out of their teams, it’s worth noting that the three players did not sign the “max contracts” they could have signed under the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement.  They sign for a bit less (albeit still for stunning amounts) to allow the Heat a bit of flexibility to sign a few more players and still stay under the NBA’s salary cap.  It’s not as if the Heat could throw unlimited money at the three players – they still had to creatively work them under the cap.  Among the deals they made was jettisoning 2008 #2 overall pick Michael Beasley for a relative pittance to free up cap space.

Remember a generation ago when Michael Jordan was playing for signficantly below his market value so that the Bulls could sign and retain players who could help them win a title – such as the ever-colorful Dennis Rodman?  Of course, the much-loved Jordan was glorified in the press for doing this – another sacrifice by the ultimate team player.  If baseball’s Albert Pujols signs an extension with the St. Louis Cardinals for less than his stratospheric market value, he too will be portrayed as a team player who is doing his part to help the Cardinals get back to the World Series.  Even in the NBA, we see aging stars sign cheap deals toward the end of their careers in an attempt to chase a ring.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that LeBron handled his departure gracefully.  The ESPN special was a bit much, even if it did raise money for charity.  Can you imagine Albert Pujols or Peyton Manning doing this?  Of course not.

Cavaliers owner  Dan Gilbert could have chosen to take the high road, but decided to get his hands dirty with an open letter than was extremely critical of James, including allegations that he gave up during the playoffs.  Other observers were equally appalled that Gilbert dared to use the Comic San Serif font for his letter (yes, I’m serious).  In any case, Gilbert’s letter served to further stoke the fires.  Gilbert may not have liked LeBron’s exit, but the fact of the matter is that LeBron was within his rights to leave – that’s the essence of the concept of free agency.

You can choose to dislike James for his decision – but don’t dislike him for working with his friends to form a super team.  They are simply trying to achieve the ultimate team goal.  It’s not impossible for another team to challenge the Heat with a similar super trio – they simply need to find a few stars hungry enough for a title that they can sacrifice a few bucks along the way.

Last week The Crunchy Conservative had an article about Shirley Sherrod (the woman at the USDA who was dismissed after a tape of her speech before the NAACP was released.  This tape apparently exposed her as a racist (anti-white as she is African-American) and using her position within the government to penalize a white farmer.  The NAACP and the White House condemned her, but have since apologized for not knowing the whole story.  I commented on that article that we (average people not in the US government) will probably never know the whole story.  I have listed to the entire tape (at least what is reported as the entire tape) and I still find very little to be sympathetic to her about.  Having been a former civil servant, I am appalled that what her customer looked like had any bearing on her fulfilling her duties.  (I must admit that I completely agree with responding to verbal attacks with reduced service).  Civil servants are basically the store clerks of the government.  Most have no authority and have to put up with a lot of abuse.

So, should she have been fired?  I have no idea.  But now we have a new flash news story, where the instant media is demanding action.  Apparently, the British head of British Petroleum (BP, the guys with the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico) is alleged to have been part of the negotiations to release the Lockerbie bomber.  For this, the press is demanding that he be fired.  I find this as bizarre as the firing of a USDA official.  If he was involved in the discussion, why not a public outcry when it happened?  Why wait until now when some in the government and many in the media want to punish BP for the oil rig accident?  (Editor’s note – Peter Rabbit wrote an article condemning the release last year – but indeed, the BP connection was not mentioned).

So what do we, as average people, know?  First we know that Tony Hayward is the CEO of BP and was in BP upper management at the time the Lockerbie bomber was released.  Second, we know (?) that BP was given drilling privileges off the cost of Libya after the release.  Third we know that BP officials (maybe Hayward) testified before the Scottish parliament for the release.  From this, he needs to be fired.  And the firing need to happen right now, with no trial or questions asked.

I truly fear that our society has no attention span, and no ability to discern logical cause and effect.  We are an instant gratification society.  We want the fastest internet -getting the news storey up first is more important than getting it right – and even the fastest food.  We complain about being fat, so we need instant weight reduction (no long term commitment or high effort), and we still eat fast food.  Perhaps we are just spoiled.  We expect and get fresh food all year long, we get 120 stations and TiVO so that we can watch anything we want instead of waiting for a show we want to watch.

In the end, let’s go back to the source of this rant.  Should these people be fired?  I don’t know.  Is it any of our business?  I say emphatically, NO!

From time to time, when reading the advice columns, I read articles about parents who are concerned that they are spending too freely in retirement and will have little money to leave to their children when they die.  Sometimes, there are even letters from grown children who are concerned that their inheritance is being spent.

My personal thought on this is that children are not entitled to an inheritance.  I’ll make an exception for young children left under the guardianship of others when you die.  In this case, it would definitely be good if you were able to leave some money (such as life insurance proceeds) to cover the cost of raising the children.  But if your children are grown, married, and established in their careers, should they really be leaning on you for financial support?  Probably not.  They should really be flying under their own power at that point.

Some people seem to be under the impression that financial assets are the most important thing parents can leave to children.  I sincerely hope that I am remembered for more than a financial bequest after I die.  I’m hoping my children will be able to look back at life skills they have learned from me and memories of times we spent together.  If money overshadows the non-financial gifts, I’d consider that a colossal failure.

For those of you who are worried about spending yours kids’ inheritance – don’t worry about it.  It’s your money, earned by decades of hard work.  You’re certainly entitled to spend it to enjoy your retirement years.  Take that trip to Europe you’ve always dreamed of (or whatever it is you’ve always dreamed of).  You may be pleasantly surprised to find out that your children actually prefer that you spend the money on yourself.

If you’re one of the kids who worry that your parents are spending money that is “rightfully yours” – I’d recommend spending 99 cents to buy the song The Will by Mark Chestnut.  Listen to it a few times and maybe your perspective will change.