48 prominent intellectuals, journalists, historians and sociologists gathered recently at the University of Pennsylvania to determine why society is becoming more rude. They can kiss my behind. What's the matter with these people? Don't they drive? Do they watch television? What a crock. (For starters, the University of Pennsylvania's homepage has a picture of a gargoyle vomiting.) Judith Rodin, president of the university, declares that the lack of civility these days is a "crisis." Hey Judy, a crisis is when your house is on fire babe, not when someone flips you off. A crisis, Judy dear, is when you're bleeding to death in the wilderness, not when someone forgets to say "please" and "thank you" at the 7-11. What a bunch of wimps. These deep thinkers want some reasons? Let's start with too many people in too little space. Add a little corporate downsizing and the general lack of job security. How about a big serving of violence on teevee? Have these learned elitists watched Nickelodeon lately? I have a "Rude Toot" doll from Mattel that farts when you squeeze it, now there's a lovely Christmas gift. Have these academics purchased a video game for their child lately? Garbage Pail Kids, are these brainiacs studying Garbage Pail Kids? Speaking of kids, how about parents refusing to discipline their children because the parents are either lazy or rude themselves? Reason with this: a foul-mouthed, unruly rotten kid should be locked in a room with no teevee and no dinner. It worked on me--and I turned out damn near perfect. And to hell with anyone who disagrees.


I met Tiny Tim in 1975 when I was filming documentaries for the campus PBS affiliate in Carbondale, Illinois. (Tiny Tim visiting Carbondale was Big News. . . my next assignment was to cover the hog-calling contest at the state fair. Tiny's career had by this time peaked twice and the small college circuit was now the third and final.) I fully expected a joke and instead found a very serious performer who loved to talk about music. When I mentioned I was a home-recording enthusiast he invited me to his hotel the next day for a recording session of his favorite songs before he left town. I brought my then state-of-the-art TEAC 3340S 4-track (which made his manager nervous). Tiny (actually Mr. Herbert Khaury) met us smartly dressed, fresh out of the shower (he was taking four to six a day at that time) and munched non-stop on a bag of sunflower seeds (an early vegan) and launched into a musical and verbal history of recorded popular music from cylinder through the shellac. Our little session lasted all afternoon and I'll never forget Mr. Khaury, his love for a good song and the joy of singing.


If you want something done wrong, you can count on The United States Government. The latest example of the U.S. SNAFU was highlighted recently by Ralph Vartabedian in The Los Angeles Times, revealing our government's use of computer technology as "pathetic" and "generations behind." This is pretty evident when we are now going to have to spend hundreds of millions of our tax dollars to deal with the problem of the year 2000 confusing the existing government-used software. (Does this strike anyone else as a bug that should have been dealt with in beta?) Macintosh's don't mind the date thing. . . but the United States obviously didn't by a lot of Macs. The government buys garbage--you and I pay to fix it. When Billary Clinton spouts off that every twelve year-old should be able to access the internet, has anyone mentioned bandwidth to this guy? A nation of prepubescent chatters making it more difficult for me to download my porn? (Just kidding, but it brings to mind the next Great Excuse: "I've seen porn, but I didn't download.") I'm getting weary of beaurocrats pontificating about technology issues they have little to no understanding of when they can't even balance a budget, much less grok UNIX. I'm just waiting for some governmental decree that all agencies have to standardize to Windoze 99. At least there continues to be some renegades at NASA who refuse to give up their Macs. Hold on hold outs!


I love the holidays, they bring out the worst in us all. For a supposedly liberal bastion, Boulder Colorado is more oppressive than any community in which I've lived in terms of micro managing the minutiae of everyday life. It feels like there is a group of folks who just can't wait to get insulted every year around this time by religious symbolism. Being blissfully agnostic myself, the holidays are simply an excuse to hang twinkly lights all over the house, which I like a lot. Colored lights are cool. Less cool is the Boulder Reaction to anything symbolic, such as:

- Hikers hanging little plastic angels in a tree alongside a popular trail. The ACLU was called in and the City of Boulder removed them. (End result: "Angel Trees" began popping up all over town.)

- The song "Silent Night" was the grand finale of a high school holiday pageant. The ACLU was called in and the City of Boulder demanded the song be dropped. (End result: the members of the audience burst into a spontaneous version of the song at the end of the program when the lights went up.)

And what can't be challenged simply gets redefined. A huge lighted star graces a hillside during the holiday season and has for decades. The ACLU was called in and the City of Boulder finally balked. People like the star. It's just a star. It lights up at night. It's cool, so the City Council simply decreed the star had no religious significance. Just like the ending of a Dr. Suess book. (End result: some Grinch gets upset every night and who cares?) Speaking of a redefinition, the fact that we generally agree that this is 1996 is based on, correct me if I'm wrong, the birth of Jesus. Oh but didn't you hear? "B.C." and "A.D." have been redefined to "mean something else." End result: who cares? By the way, did anyone else notice the White House Christmas tree was lighted on the first night of Hanukkah?


Now we're getting somewhere: organ donation by death row inmates. Organ farms-- that's how we should look at prisons. Hell, the inmates get three squares and a lot of time to work out with weights. . . for all intents and purposes our growing prison population should be models of health and fitness. (Their bodies at least.) So what do you do with a terminally criminal mind? Farm the organs! Stand by for some resistance from Jehovah's Witnesses who feel that blood from another person should never be introduced into one's body (and I happen to agree). Beyond that, let's take advantage of nature's redundancy. There are a handy pair of some pretty important parts, and a person can get along quite nicely with just one kidney for example; especially if all you really have to do all day is sit around, eat, exercise, watch television and then sit around some more--in other words, a prisoner. John Wayne only had one lung and he could beat the tar out of stuntmen! And let's not overlook those corneas either! The Prison Organ Farm has some real profit potential. Now I'm sure there will be some hand-wringing namby-pamby human rights people getting their britches in a bunch--but hey, if they don't want a prisoner's pancreas then just stay out of the discussion! I think if a human being takes a life, that particular human being LOSES his/her basic human rights. Talk about repaying your debt to society, I just can't think of a better way than to require a murderer give the gift of life. One piece at a time.