Warning: Made in China

What if you declare war and no one shows up to fight? That seems to be what China’s mulling over right now. Caught up in a made-up war over in the desert, we neglected to heed the call to arms that China issued nearly a decade ago.

You gotta hand it to them; they’ve fought calculated battles, hitting our people and our infrastructure with minimal loss of their own. How is it that our media and our politicians have yet to realize they’ve been waging a quiet, deadly war against us? Why do we keep chalking up each attack to ineptitude when it’s obvious they’re trying to pick us off one by one – and succeeding?

This isn’t crazy conspiracy talk. It’s an actual conspiracy. The summer of 2007 saw a massive recall of lead-laced toys made in China. Hasn’t it been something like 40 years since lead was added to anything except gas? Then there was toothpaste. The FDA ordered the destruction of Chinese-made toothpaste for containing toxic amounts of diethelyne glycol, a sweet, syrupy poison.

The fall of 2008 brought melamine-tainted baby milk, eggs, sweets, and animal feed across Europe and parts of U.S. Suddenly deadly amounts of melamine showed up in all of those unrelated,Chinese-made products?

The latest bomb exploded in our housing sector, though it may have been the first one planted. Since 2001, Chinese drywall used in most of our new housing has been emitting hazardous amounts of sulfur gas. In lightning time, this corrodes copper, electrical wiring, air conditioners, appliances, makes people sick, and easily becomes airborne, thereby entering and lodging in lungs.

Our government just issued a warning to gut all drywall, insulation, wiring, circuit breakers, and gas pipes and replace them completely. How did the Chinese government – which directly manufactured this product – manage to hit so many Americans? Their Trojan horse came in the form of a ridiculously cheap price we couldn’t resist.

The Chinese didn’t need to fly a plane into our centers of commerce because we paid them to send bombs into our homes and the hands of our children. We forgive and forget each time, continue to buy their products, and close our eyes to the obvious.

We are at war. Instead of trained militants, it is postmen, teachers, accountants, and babies who are on the frontline. Laugh if you will, but mark my words, there will be more headlines. The only one we should be seeing from now on is this: Warning! Made in China.

Till Cold Feet Do Us Part

It was a rite of passage around ten or twelve or some age when parents finally decided you were tough enough not to succumb to childhood disease. If you’d beat the pox, scarlet fever, croup, pneumonia, and measles, then a parent felt obligated to contribute a few bucks to your continued survival. Henceforth, warm nights in New England were no longer limited to dying embers in the potbelly and hot water bottles under the covers. No, from there on out you got your very own electric blanket. It was usually a hand-me-down or picked up while yardsaling and about half of the wires worked. But it was warm and welcome.

As an adult with a thermostat-regulated gas furnace, no wood to chop, and insulated walls, there is little need for this New England bedroom staple. But like warm cookies and hot chocolate, it is a comfort, a guilty pleasure. But unlike such American staples as Star Wars and Corvette, the original benefited from its update: the electric mattress pad.

Anyone with backaches, arthritis, or a partner who won the thermostat war needs one of these babies. It envelopes you like a . . . well, a warm blanket. A hug. Loving arms that never fall asleep or fidget. Adjustable from 1-10 and split down the middle with dual controls for his and her comfort, the electric mattress pad is the best invention since electricity. It’s like being a kid again – without the chores.

I pledge allegiance to . . . Hubba Bubba?

In typical American slacker fashion, Bode Miller chomped gum during the national anthem as he stood on the medal podium at the 2010 Olympics. The next day, his teammates paid dearly. Lindsey Vonn crashed hard and broke a bone, causing Julia Mancuso to be stopped mid-run. Her cursed second run went poorly.

Hell hath no fury like a nation’s flag scorned.

Of the eight golds (thus far) that were privileged to be accompanied by our national anthem, I only noticed one athlete putting their hand over their heart. Not one attempted the song, though cross-country skier Johnny Spillane did mumble along some.

It’s been noted that our own President doesn’t observe all of the recommendations set out by U.S. Code 301. Is Nationalism dead? In this day of invisible boundaries where athletes from several nations are all wearing Nike manufactured Olympic gear, where the best Norwegian sleds are raced under a rainbow of flags, and where our most medaled winter Olympian hails from Japanese roots, is there even such a thing as nationalism?

The Pledge of Allegiance isn’t said in most of our schools anymore. Only Whitney Houston knows all the words to our National Anthem. Our nation hasn’t fallen yet for this lack of showy patriotism. But for God’s sake, spit out the gum, Bode. It’s just good manners. If we are nothing else, we are polite Americans, eh?

Once Upon a Faulty Gene

Children are programmed to love their parents no matter the harm inflicted upon them. It’s hardwired into their little brains and hearts to forgive and trust. It’s one of nature’s catch-22 scenarios, put there to ensure that a parent can doctor a child back to health and still hold esteem.

As a sick tyke, I often felt betrayed by my trustworthy folks as they held me down and put torturous drops into my painfully infected ears. How could they do that to me over and over, knowing how much I hated it? I now watch with sick regret as I have to do the same to my own little one. I look into his doe eyes, filled with surprise and accusation and thank God or Mother Nature for his ability to hug me afterward instead of running away. I will always be the bad guy, the one to scrape wounds clean and make him drink penicillin (aka poison to him).

The problem is that this “get outta jail free” gene is the same one that makes abused kids lie and defend their parents, afraid of being separated from them. How is a judge to know what’s best for a child when that kid can’t differentiate abuse from loving care and says with all sincerity, “I want to live with mommy”? If evolution weeds out harmful traits, how long will it take for society to be rid of bad parents? And if there were no more bad parents, could we even procreate? Or is selfishness just inherently human?

Dear Conan,

Dear Conan,

Stop being a baby.

If I did my job poorly, got bad reviews, or didn't make my numbers, I'd be fired. All you got for doing a bad job was a shift change; although you still get to go in at the same convenient time in daylight hours to do that job. Your late night show doesn't actually require that you work at midnight, unlike the plant employees where I work.

If I made fun of my bosses on their dime, I'd be tossed faster than dice in Governor Paterson's back yard. So you feel lied to by corporate America who didn't come through on their word for your promotion. Welcome to my world. I don't get paid a few million to ease that sting.

Your refusal of the reassignment is simply Un-American. I don't know one person who would turn down a paying gig. I do know plenty of laid off factory workers who are funny enough to fill in for you if you think you're above it. I'd bet my next measly paycheck they'd bring in higher ratings than you. But if they didn't and NBC gave them a pink slip, they'd hold their head high and go stand in line at the unemployment office like so many others.

Ya see, Conan, this country is built on the shoulders of workers. Go work.

Russia Saves the Galaxy?

It wasn't too long ago that we were sure that Russia -- the USSR, CCCP -- would blow up the world. They beat us to space, we beat them at hockey. We raced to build arms with the foolish thought that if we had one more than them, they'd back down. In the end, they gave us their wall and we gave them denim.

Hearing that Russians stood in line for hours for toilet paper sorta whipped back the curtain and all at once, the big bad wizard behind the screen was just a little man with great manipulative powers. Russia became to the superpowers what Mork was to aliens.

So what does a nation do that's been all but exiled from Earth? Become the superpower in space. It's a lawless, unexplored front with no borders and little political history. Their space station is the Eagle's Nest of the galaxy.

Now with a crippled U.S. and our own status as a world superpower being questioned, it seems that Russia is once again making headlines with their influence on the world. The Earth, to be exact.

Russia's space agency just announced plans to attack a rogue asteroid, ala Armageddon. Is this more smoke and mirrors in Oz, or have they somehow managed to bring the nations of Earth to their mercy once again? When they're done playing Galactic Sheriff, will we let them back into our playground, thankful they saved the day? Will they even want back in? Russia may be quite content to rule us from a throne made of stars. While we continue to chase our tails here on the third rock from the sun, our one-time nemesis is becoming king of a new hill.

Be afraid. Be very afraid. Their version of Princess Leia doesn't look nearly as good in a gold bikini.

Biggest Brothers

Band of Brothers is not meant to be watched in the dark, alone. It is soul marking and its enlightenment should be realized in the shadow of tree limbs splattered with tiny lights as the snow falls outside.

Every Christmas I dust off my boxed set and pop it in. From its brilliant beginning, where David Schwimmer has his Glengarry Glen Ross moment, to the freeing of the camps, Band of Brothers delivers life lessons. It redefines friendship and family and reminds us the cost of freedom before bombs and internet warfare.

A great performance by Damien Lewis made me one of the two dozen people who faithfully watched his series Life before it got canned. Other great sightings: An unrecognizable Matthew Settle (before Gossip Girl fame) as the crazy Lt. Spiers, a premier performance by Hollywood royalty Colin Hanks as a rich West Point graduate trying to make good on the front line, ghost appearances by producer Tom Hanks as a British officer, and a very young James McAvoy as an unappreciated Replacement.

Somewhere around Christmas Eve as I wrap the last present and warm my feet by the fire, the 101st is spending their holiday dug into a trench in below-zero Bastogne, shaving with shards of ice and eating frozen bread to survive. I think how opposite those conditions are to the current warriors in the 120 degree deserts of Iraq, yet their fight is the same. The only thing that changes is the face of the enemy.

Our freedom is never really won. Like the Stanley Cup, we get to keep it for a short time until someone bigger and stronger comes along and takes it away. We will always need 19-year old boys who believe they are invincible. I think of this as I watch my nothing-scares-him baby boy sleep fitfully in his crib. Having no siblings of his own, I wonder if he will someday bond with his brothers-in-arms in a faraway land, believing that Freedom is worth it and equally convinced he will come home someday.

As I watch history unfold on my screen for the eighth year in a row, knowing most of them will be dead by the seventh hour of this miniseries, I find myself cheering, screaming, and crying anyway. I like these guys. Elizabeth Edwards said the only way a dead person lives on is through those who knew them and remember. Millions of people know these young men now.

They will truly live in infamy. And well they should.

We Text You A Merry Christmas

Whatever happened to the Christmas card? The tree trunk's worth of glittery paper adorned with Coca-Cola Santas and too many rugrats that used to line my hallway at the holidays has dieted its way to a couple of generic "Season's Greetings" and the occasional form letter from a cousin. It's not that life has become too busy for my friends and family. If anything, their full lives give them more reason to send an annual "howdy" along with an updated photo we can all hold onto in case one is abducted.

Much like its cousin the Pen Pal Letter, the Christmas Card has been made extinct by Facebook, email, and digital cameras. My faraway cousins with whom I kept up only through my parents' monthly update and once-a-decade photo now inundate my Facebook page. I not only know their kids' grades and friends, I also know their latest Sudoko score and Virtual Mayoral duties. What I don't know is their address, phone number, or what their voices sound like.

Technology has brought us closer, shrinking our globe to M&M proportions. I'll probably never see the handwriting of my nephew although I'll "see" and "hear" him through some silicone medium. But then modern penmanship is a topic best debated another time.

Lucy -- one year gone

She died on Thanksgiving
She was my friend
my walking buddy
my meal companion
my foot warmer
my first baby

It was a cruel circle of life
I cleaned up after her as a puppy
and again as a senior when she couldn't hold her own
I helped her up stairs when she was too little and gangly to make it
and again when she was too old and arthritic
I crushed up her food before she had teeth
and again when they'd all fallen out

She died on Thanksgiving
and I was never more thankful

Breakin Even

Growing up with a landscape of people as pale as the snow that capped the mountains that framed my State, I was oblivious to inner-city struggles, urban plight, and social welfare. “Gang” was just the four letter word that preceded “ly” when describing the boys in my town.

So when the single screen movie theatre – the only one in a twenty mile radius – showed Breakin’, we went in droves. Somehow I talked four different adults into taking me six times before it left town and was replaced by Karate Kid or Footloose or some other fish out of water story.

Rewatching it now with the wisdom of years, the experience of living near a big city, and the many gang articles seared into my brain, I’m as lost as I was then, just for different reasons. While I’m able to identify Adam as the flaming gay dancer friend – he just seemed unusually extravagant then – I’m unsure if gangs actually fought this way in the 80’s. Did they really dance it out, the best street corners going to the declared winner ala 8 Seconds? Or was Hollywood glossing over (or maybe oblivious to) the problem brewing right under their nose only a few miles away?

While the interracial relationships didn’t faze me – they’re just people of a slightly different color, albeit colors I hadn’t seen in person at the time – I now wonder if they were as easily accepted as the movie made them out to be. The only problem people seemed to have was “street” versus “trained” dancers. Maybe this was Hollywood’s way of slyly addressing the class differences in the hills and valleys of LaLa Land. Or maybe they just wanted to build that dance wagon everyone would soon jump on. If so, they were also early creators of the boy-girl-boy hero trio that’s still popular today (see Harry Potter).

Despite the movie not aging well (who the hell is Lucinda Dickey?), I was pleased to be able to identify Ice-T twenty five years later. He hasn’t aged a day. Now that’s some Hollywood magic.

Drunk Blog Dialing

One recent Friday night, I found myself bored with all my books, all two hundred TV channels,and every friend who might want to chat. I needed something different, unpredictable. A few years ago, I'd have hit a new club or called up my European entourage to entertain me for the evening. But since it's illegal to leave a baby unattended (go figure), I find myself at home on more weekends than not.

This is when I discovered drunk blog dialing. You don't have to actually be drunk, but it's fun to do a shot (or a sip of a shot) for every blog you like. Here's how to play. Go to a blogger site (like this one), then push the button at the top called "next blog." Blogger randomly moves you to another blog page.

For some reason, about ninety percent of them were German that night (this happens) but I did come across a few worth reading and some even worth following. Here's a highlight:

Fat Nat Sketches http://nategaul.blogspot.com/ -- a kid with a good hand for drawing monsters.

Film Girl http://filmgirlopinions.blogspot.com/ -- a girl with a love for old movies and the beatles. She reviews (and has great pics) of old, old movies. Very funny is the "spoiler" warnings she puts on each, as though these just came out last weekend.

Pittsbugh Daily Photo http://pburghdailypho.blogspot.com/2009/10/sometimes-most-sweetest-random-moments.html -- A nurse who went to art school in Pittsburgh and takes beautiful photos of the not-so-sh**burgh.

A Virginia Flyfishing Journal http://ridpathflylines.blogspot.com/ -- You don't have to like fishing or flies to enjoy the Garrison Keillor-esque writing this guy does.

Brooklyn Guy's Wine and Food Jouranl http://brooklynguyloveswine.blogspot.com/ -- A great guide to local wines and food from a real person. Only slightly snobby.

I also came across some really cute family blogs, where I watched the kids grow up years in a matter of minutes of surfing. I didn't "follow" these, though, and won't mention them here. They're minors, after all, and if the kid goes missing, you know the police are coming looking for the weirdo cyberstalking them.

Next time you have a minute, click the "next blog" button a few time and see what you find. Maybe a gem.

Seventy-two Tattoos

Your mad genius pierced my skin
Six dozen times
Drilling like my blood was oil

Your art is your soul
That I welcomed into my body
Like a conjoined twin

I enter your den
Drink from your well
Unbutton my heart

You ready your paints
Smile wickedly
Swab my chest

You tell me this time will hurt
No
The real pain comes with leaving

I only meant to get one
Then I fell in love
This time you will ask me out

A Dark Haiku

It was always dark
She dug graves in the summer
Odd for a woman

She found it peaceful
Preparing the resting place
For the dead and gone

She was no martyr
It was the least she could do
Because she'd killed them

PRIDE

They came with hopes of a better life, ten dollars in their pocket, and a phone card to call the only relative living in the States who might give them shelter. They left family, their homeland, the mother tongue. Their first English words were spoken when their feet touched this hallowed ground. With no land to till or crops to tend, they gladly took the jobs abandoned by the generation turning to computers and college.

Standing all day in near hundred degree heat next to machines as loud as lawnmowers, they pump out millions of items that magically appear on our store shelves, courtesy of the immigrant.

They’ll never be rich. They’ll never work in air conditioned cubicles. They know they are considered bottom of the wrung by so many Americans. But they have pride in what they do.

When “Bring Your Child to Work Day” comes around, they gather in droves, ushering their offspring to their stations, showing off their part in the assembly line of life. For some, it is the only time they’ve been known to smile.

They remember why they left and why they came.

Dead Hero

As a young girl, I was probably what the adults called “boy crazy.” I’d fixate on the cutest or most charming male around, sure that he was a god never to be outdone. Inevitably, he’d do something dumb, as boys are apt to do, and my fragile bubble would burst. His beautiful image would turn to ash faster than palms on Sunday. This was the beginning of a lifelong curse of being disappointed by that unreliable gender, of looking for that crack in the armor before it collapsed on me.

There were a few who persisted in their petrified state in my mind, frozen in time, untouched by human foibles. But eventually even those cannot help but expose their weaknesses, their indignities, their intolerant corniness.

I’ll never forget the collapse of one such memory, one I held so close to my heart for so long. Before cable TV and multiplex cinemas, we were at the mercy of program planners. We watched what they fed us, over and over. And before Harry Potter and vampire lovers on HBO, we had The Dragonslayer. I was ten and Galen was every girl’s heartthrob. A head of fabulously curly hair (it was the 80s), a slight frame perfect for a young girl’s obsession, and a smile so warm it could have melted the iceberg and saved the Titanic.

Galen was my hero. He slayed the dragon, saved the town, saved the girl – the tomboy of a girl, to whom I related oh too well – and was an all around brave guy. I went through life for years looking for Galen, only to meet silly boys with no interest in being men or heroes.

Then one day in the 90s, deep into my Ally McBeal obsession of all things “I don’t need a man but I’ll take one if he’s perfect”, I stumbled across Dragonslayer on cable. My hero had returned. Seeking a two hour reprieve from the disappointment that was my life, I settled in with flannel pajamas and popcorn to remind myself what I was holding out for.

Then I saw him. Not Galen, my brave, handsome dragonslaying hero, but The Biscuit. Yep, my childhood hero was played by Peter MacNicol, now better known to me as that stuttering, oddball from Ally McBeal. I made it about twenty minutes into the movie, wincing the entire time at the sheer campiness of it all, before I threw in the towel.

Another hero bites the dust.