No good deed goes unpunished!

Four intrepid golfers headed out on a raw, cold October day to play golf. The curmudgeon being one of them. We have a standing deal that we play for lunch, usually at McDonald's, unless there's a Culver's on our route. Our current handicap is subtracted from our raw score. The two highest adjusted scorers buy for the two lowest. There's also a rule that if there are any ties all scores are considered tied.
So there we were on the 18th green frostbitten, windblown and damp. All of us were looking forward to a hot meal at McDonald's. Three of us had our balls on the green. The fourth person had a difficult downhill chip to a green that slanted hard away from where he was playing. The hole wasn't going well for him. When he chipped he hit the ball too hard and it was about to roll across the green and off. I was standing near the path of the ball and stepped in front of stopping it about 10 feet from the hole.
We finished the game and went to the parking lot to tally up our scores. When the handicaps were considered the person whose ball I stopped and I had the best scores, however, we tied. That invoked the 'one tie all tie' rule. Therefore, my action in stopping the ball, saved that golfer a stroke but cost him, an me, a free lunch! Ah, yes, that good old law of unintended consequences! :)

Effectiveness Training

Over lunch today, with two colleagues ,I brought up Dr. Thomas Gordon and his books on 'Effectiveness Training'. The first one was PARENT EFFECTIVENESS TRAINING which was followed by TEACHER EFFECTIVENESS TRAINING and several others of the same genre'. Gordon's genius was taking basic, sound, counseling techniques and principles, and packaging them for parents and others as helps for effective communication and relationship building.
The basic tools were effective listening, I-messages, conflict resolution, and problem ownership. I learned a lot from Gordon and his work. His concepts and principles remain valid today and I think it is unfortunate that it is not more widely used today. However, much of his work has permeated society even though many have no idea of the source of the language and skills. One of the persons with whom I had lunch said he'd found the Effectiveness material online.
In the 1970's the Lutheran Church was active in promoting his work as a way of helping create functional families. Both the Curmudgeon and the Curmudgeonette were trained as Effectiveness Teachers. When we were in Sioux Falls at Kate's and Brad's wedding last June two persons thanked the Curmedgeonette for the skills they'd learned when she taught Effectiveness Training there in the 70's.

Racist?

Former President Jimmy Carter was roundly chastised for saying that some of the virulent reaction to President Obama's health reform is racist. Intuitively that makes sense when I'm honest about the latent racism in me. However, such motivation is hard to prove.
Now research, quoted in the October 20, 2009 CHRISTIAN CENTURY provides some proof. "...researchers Marc J. Hetherington and Jonathan D. Weiler have evidence that Carter is on to something. They analyzed a late 2008 survey that asked people if they favored a government-run health care system, a system like the one we have now, or something in between. The same survey also asked four questions on race designed to measure racial resentment. The findings revealed a strong correlation between racial resentment and opposition to health-care reform. They say that no such correlation exited in the 1990s when the Clinton administration was making a similar effort at health-care reform." (see page 7)

Better than 1000 words!

About travel...

Klara Glowczewska, writing in the September issue of CONDE NAST TRAVELER quotes Mark Twain from 1869 who wrote "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts." He went on "Broad, wholesome, charitable, views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all of one's lifetime." I wish he was right in the first quote, however, I know too many bigots who travel. The second quote is also not true in my experience. My father held broad, wholesome, charitable views of people though he had almost no opportunity to travel. Most of his travel was done via the printed page.
But the point that Ms. Glowczewska was trying to make is that she believes that Americans are entering a new phase of travel. In this new day she thinks that we are more open to the cultural experiences bring and are less imperialistic. She also thinks that part of the credit goes to the Obamas who are enthusiastic globe travelers.
Of course I hope she's right, because for good or ill, every American who travel abroad is an ambassador for better or for worse.

Newer pics of my favorite subject at 5 mos.

Books to recommend

I've recently read a couple of good books which are very different from each other. THE BOOK THIEF by Markus Zusak is a novel that tells the story of a young girl living though WW II in Germany. Story is narrated by death which gives a unique perspective to the telling. Some stores stock it on the young readers shelves. Our neighborhood book club is reading it and should make a wonderful discussion.
I WAS A TEENAGE NORWEGIAN by Peter Dublin is his story of being an American AFS student in Tromso, Norway in the early sixties. Besides his reflections on using the year to mature personally there is much interesting reflection on Norwegian society. Tromso is north of the Arctic Circle so there are months in which the sun does not shine and months when the sun does not set. Quite a bit of Norwegian language is sprinkled through the book.
Read THE BOOK THIEF when you're in good space and TEENAGE NORWEGIAN when you want a lift.