William Hazelgrove's Open Salon Blog

Socializing makes you smarter

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 11:03:39 -0400

Now when you head out for a beer with the boys or some champagne with the girls you now have a valid reason; it makes you smarter. The NY Times just had an article discussing the merit of going out to see a friend or a loved one or just about anybody who talks. They have to talk. But if they talk then the research is that we wire up like crazy. I have always suspected this. Whenever I go out and talk politics or culture or anything I always feel a little smarter than when I began. According to the Times this is the perfect antidote to becoming the cyber moron who communicates in texts.

Apparently we stimulate each other. Our speech patterns. Our content. Just about everything to do with having a conversation gets our neurons humming. Ever notice how dull you become when you don't see your friends? Ever notice how one dimensional your thinking gets when all you do is work? Your brain goes to sleep and slips into an autopilot mode. But if you head out on a Wednesday night and meet a good friend then the next day you will be sharper, brighter, more relaxed.

It's interesting how people devalue interaction. Middle class people believing slogging it out will get them there but really you can do nothing better than take a break. We are social creatures and our sociability stimulates our brains and lights up all sorts of memories, epiphanies, thoughts, insights. I find that many time I think of new stories while having a conversation. This is because we find the hidden treasures by our connections.

So do it. Call someone. Go out. It will make you a lot smarter.

www.williamhazelgrove.com

Rocket Man...the American Dream upside down

Modern Dads spend more time with kids, but...

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 13:03:03 -0400

Alright. Dads are doing a lot better. In 1965 they spend 2.5 hours a week with their kids. In 2011 they spend 7.3. A three hundred percent increase, but mothers still blow them away. A whopping 13.5 hours. Twice of the dads. And here is the kicker, dads feel worse about that 7.3 than their fathers did with their 2.5. In other words dads just cant get a break while their wives feel pretty good about the time spent with their children and their own dads didn't break a sweat about their provider little kid time status.

I get it. I feel like I never spend enough time with my kids and I work at home. Of course you can be at home and not be at home. But still I feel like I do not see my kids but near enough and with one son getting toward college I wonder...did I do enough? Was I a good dad? Who doesn't have these thoughts right? And you have to envy those old dads who just went off to work and plowed ahead and maybe they missed their kids but I'm not so sure. If you don't open the box then maybe you never know what you are missing.

But we do. As a dad you are always rushing home to that kid function. Missed kid activities are painful and you wonder about those traveling dads. I knew a guy who traveled every week and I asked him about missing his kids. He said if he thought about it it would kill him. So there is that. But for most of us "around" dads you still feel like you are not doing enough. More activities. More bonding moments. And then they grow up anyway.

It breaks your heart.

Rocket Man...the American Dream shouldn't be this hard

Starving the Beast

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 00:03:47 -0400

What is the sequester really about you ask. Well, it is about Starving the Beast and destroying the second term of President Obama. These are not intermingled except one will serve the other. Historically the Beast is the government. The Beast has been fed since FDRs New Deal. This is the first sin as far as Tea Party Republicans are concerned. The Beast began to fatten up with Social Security Medicare Food Stamps Medicaid the Department of Education, Energy, even the Department of the Interior.

If Ayn Rand is the Joan of Arc of the Starve the Beast movement then certainly FDR is the father of the beast. And so began the struggle to keep feeding the Beast by one side and to starve it by the other. We quickly devolved into Republicans and Democrats facing off in the classic Hamiltonian Jefferson struggle: redistribution versus free enterprise. And so like the Cold War we co-existed until...until the election of Barack Obama and the rise of the Tea Party. And then a strategy emerged. A workable strategy. Starve the Beast.

You do it by shutting down the government at every opportunity and holding the President and basically the American people hostage. Well, it has worked well. The sequester is one massive spending cut. The dream of the Tea Party. Also it knocks down the President at the same time the Beast gets bled and bled. The ultimate bleeding will be one of continued blocks during the ongoing debt ceiling debates. Add to this that no Republican can afford to be to the left of the Tea Party without losing their seat in a Primary and you have a perfect storm. Or a Democracy held hostage to an ideology.

That ideology is that Social Programs are inherently bad. Government is inherently bad and it really should be every man for him or herself. The one percent or the four hundred families that have more wealth than 150 millions people deserve every nickel. In a strange turnabout our government is being led by a small faction of ideologues in the House. So the Beast will be starved. FDR's baby will be finally starved in his crib once and for all. President Obamas second term will be sullied.

And the American people are just hapless bystanders.

www.billhazelgrove.com
Rocket Man..the Catcher in the Rye for the Great Recession

Starving the Beast

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 00:03:34 -0400

The American as it stands

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 15:03:30 -0400

Watch this video.
http://www.upworthy.com/9-out-of-10-Americans-are-completely-wrong-about-this-mind-blowing-fact-2
Ok. Now you know. And if you suspected you are working harder for less you are right. The thesis of Rocket Man and every novel dealing with the American Dream is that it is really a phantom. Take Gatsby. Jay Gatsby had rightly figured out that the American Dream was ultimately to be wealthy. Fabulously wealthy. And he attained it but then he was literally crushed by the forces that be. The Tom Buchannans. The one percent of his time.

Gatsby had tried to crash the gates and had been found wanting. He really didn't understand the forces against him as we know now. Income inequality. Even if you are doing fine you still have to be staggered that one percent of the population owns forty percent of the wealth. Or twenty percent at the top owns eighty nine percent of the wealth while the bottom eighty percent (us) have 11 percent of the wealth! That is what we divide up. Think about how about the fact that one percent owns fifty percent of the stocks while the middle class own less than five percent. Think about that. These numbers are staggering.

Look around. People are working longer and harder for less. They literally look unwell. People have aged dramatically in the last ten years. Their clothes are older. Their cars are older. These all point to the shrinking pie. What is it...four hundred families own more wealth than one hundred and fifty million Americans! Clearly the American Dream has become one of unloading before the next catastrophe.

I would say the new American Dream is one of downsizing now. Not getting something bigger, but something smaller. It is something unheard of in the march of our country. It was always forward. Now it is one of trying to jettison property before someone loses their job. The American Dream is now simply one of finding something we lost along the way.

Rocket Man...the American Dream upside down