The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Archives for September 2009

As The Bodies Fell- He Played

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(Originally posted here.) 
 

Not unlike so many others the fifth anniversary of September 11 has been weighing upon me. I have been mulling over my thoughts and feelings and trying to decide what to say. I feel the weight of the moment and it makes me uneasy.

I have waded through hundreds of thousands of words that others have written, listened to audio clips of the day and spent far too much time watching video. My goal is to share my thoughts with you and to do so with as much eloquence and dignity as I can muster.

I am a decent writer, but others are far better than I am so I will leave the longer essays in their capable hands. As for the video, well I think that this time around I’ll let others posts their tributes/comments/criticisms on their own sites.

If you are interested in that kind of thing you might want to click here.

It was a Tuesday morning. Here in LA it was like many other mornings but this time my routine was interrupted by a call from my employer. She let me know that there had been an attack and that the office was going to be closed.

When I turned on the television my jaw dropped. I sat there transfixed by the sight of the planes crashing into the towers and the eventual collapse. I was dumbstruck by it all. But what I remember most of all is rather simple.

As I sat on the couch trying to process it all my son played. He was ten months old and oblivious to the pictures of the carnage. He held colored blocks and studied them. He grabbed stuffed animals and hugged them. He took toy cars and banged them on the floor and all the while the television showed the bodies falling from the sky.

The bodies fell awkwardly through the air. Some were still and some moved every which way, as if they were desperately trying to learn how to fly.

The bodies fell and he continued to play. The bodies fell and I stared at him. He was oblivious to it all. I felt guilty and relieved. Guilty because I knew that the people I saw on television were important to someone. A wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, a father, a son and or brother.

They were people, but from 3000 miles away they were like specks.

I remember picking up the big boy from the floor. He smiled at me and pulled on my hair. I smiled back and hugged him tightly. I held him in my arms and prayed that the war would end before he was old enough to be at risk.

And now five years later he is old enough to be quite aware of the world around him. We have worked hard to maintain his innocence so that he might be a child for as long as possible. In many ways we have succeeded, but I worry that come monday morning that might change.

I have other 911 stories about the people I knew in the city and the things that happened to them. I was pretty lucky. 911 cost me a lot of money, but that is nothing compared to others.

This summer I was forced to spend some time explaining war to him. This summer he lost a little bit more of his innocence. I am hopeful that Monday will not take more from him.

The picture below is a personal favorite of mine. To me it is a reminder of hope and a symbol that we may have had our nose bloodied but we were not broken. Right now there is a lot of acrimony and partisan bickering, but Osama and company better remember that there is no dispute here about finding them.

There is a long memory and G-d willing they will all be brought to justice. In the interim I offer my own hope and fervent desire that we see a speedy end to the various wars and conflicts and that the coming year is one of peace.

Back To School

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My kids started school last week and it has been one giant adventure.

My daughter is in kindergarten where she and her friends are busy trying to decide who is going to marry whom. Heavy negotiations are taking place.

Her older brother’s response to all this is “girls are weird” and the astute observation, “moms are just bigger girls aren’t they.”

I smile and tell him that he has no idea, but one day he will.

In between all this my son wants to know why everyone else went to Hawaii or somewhere else and we didn’t. I laugh and tell him poverty builds character.

Fortunately he shrugs his shoulder and is content to resume playing with Legos.

Last night I asked him if his class saw the president’s speech. He said no so I guess that I don’t have to worry about him being brainwashed. But he did say that they are supposed to discuss something about Obama, but he is not sure what.

And then he looks at me and says that I was right, third grade is harder than second but not impossible.

The dark haired beauty started kindergarten last week so she has plenty to add about all of this. In addition to the stories about the boys she has had plenty to tell me. She is ecstatic about having homework and makes a point of showing me her homework folder every day. She is so excited about it she wants to know why she doesn’t have homework on the weekend.

I laugh and say that it won’t be long before she does. She doesn’t know why I am laughing and is a bit miffed by it. I give her a big hug and tell her not to worry. And then I look into those dark eyes and ask if she’ll stay five a bit longer.

She agrees and tells me that she will stay five until she turns six and that I’ll just have to deal with it. Oy, I love this girl but she is determined to kill me. I know now that the preteen years and beyond are going to be interesting.

Late at night I go online and check out the school’s new website. They just rolled this puppy out and I am impressed. They have done a nice job with it and I can see that it is going to make a great resource.

There is a calendar with a list of events and each of their teachers logs homework and school projects on it as well. It makes it really easy to keep up with things and the digital photos that they upload from the classrooms are pretty cool too.

It all feels good and at the moment the private school dilemma is at rest but it won’t be long before that particular monster comes out of the closet looking for food again.

In the interim all is well. They are happy and we are happy and sometimes that is all you can ask for.

Walmart- The Empire Strikes Back

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Well it appears that the rebel’s attack on the empire did not succeed and now they are striking back.

Time reports that Walmart has unveiled its very own Deathstar, called Project Impact.

“One goal of Project Impact is cleaner, less cluttered stores that will improve the shopping experience. Another is friendlier customer service. A third: home in on categories where the competition can be killed. “They’ve got Kmart ready to take a standing eight-count next year,” says retail consultant Burt Flickinger III, managing director for Strategic Resources Group and a veteran Walmart watcher. “Same with Rite Aid. They’ve knocked out four of the top five toy retailers, and are now going after the last one standing, Toys “R” Us. Project Impact will be the catalyst to wipe out a second round of national and regional retailers.”

So what does one of these stores look like? Let’s save the goofy photos for a moment and return to the article:

“One recent weekday afternoon I toured a brand new, 210,000-sq.-ft. Walmart in West Deptford, N.J., with Lance De La Rosa, the company’s Northeast general manager. “We’ve listened to our customers, and they want an easier shopping experience,” says De La Rosa. “We’ve brightened up the stores and opened things up to make it more navigable.” One of the most noticeable changes is that Project Impact stores reshape Action Alley, the aisles where promotional items were pulled off the shelves and prominently displayed for shoppers. Those stacks both crowded the aisles and cut off sight lines. Now, the aisles are all clear, and you can see most sections of the store from any vantage point. For example, standing on the corner intersection of the auto-care and crafts areas, you can look straight ahead and see where shoes, pet care, groceries, the pharmacy and other areas are located. And the discount price tags are still at eye level, so the value message doesn’t get lost.

“They are like roads,” De La Rosa says proudly. “And look around, the customers are using them. We’ve already gotten feedback about the wider, more breathable aisles. Our shoppers love them.”

The layout is also smarter. “You can kind of guess where everything is going to be,” says Sharon Tilotta, 73, a shopper in the West Deptford store. The pharmacy, pet foods, cosmetics and health and beauty sections are now adjacent to the groceries. In the past, groceries and these other sections were often at opposite ends of the store, which made it more difficult for someone looking to pick up some quick consumables to get in and out of Walmart. “Under Project Impact, Walmart is providing more of a full supermarket experience within its walls,” says Feldman.”

I am not so sure that I like what I am reading. Competition is healthy. Sounds like they are going to force the smaller guys to work really hard on finding ways to maintain marketshare.

An Ugly Divorce

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I have avoided writing about Jon and Kate Gosselin. I don’t find it to be particularly interesting and more importantly I feel badly for their children.

I haven’t any false ideas about marriage. I do not believe that every relationship is made to last and I am not of the opinion that people should stay married just for the children.

Anyhoo, I signed onto CNN and saw that Jon Gosselin says that he despises his wife and decided to give my two cents. I couldn’t tell you if she is the worst wife ever or the best. I don’t watch their show, but when I read that I got irritated.

Irritated because two adults decided to become reality television stars, decided to chronicle their lives on television. That is all fine and good, but now they are chronicling what appears to be a very ugly divorce on camera.

Now they are placing their children in a terrible position. They shouldn’t have to worry about strangers asking if their mom is a bitch or their dad is a jerk. They shouldn’t be able to have the end of their parent’s marriage immortalized on camera. It is wrong.

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