dave dart

The US Park Service, part of the Department of Interior asks us to "PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS" because the animals grow dependent and do not take care of themselves.

Meanwhile the US Department of Agriculture is "pleased to be distributing the greatest amount of food stamps ever."

Need I say more?
 

if you didn't see this column on cnn.com today, it's worth 10 minutes of your time to read... even more so if you have school age children:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/06/living/teachers-want-to-tell-parents/index.html

i admit i grew up in a different time in our history, a time when authority figures were to be respected, and to be feared if you ever crossed them.  that era is long gone, replaced by the feel good "your self esteem is more important than anything" era. this article drives it home better than I ever could.

what prompted me to expand upon it is i experienced in a small way tonight what teachers must experience every day. i had to get after the neighbor kids for riding their makeshift go-kart into my driveway as i was backing into the garage. what happened next would be comical if it weren't so sad.

a few minutes after "the incident", the mom knocks on the door to give me a piece of her mind for scolding her children "who would never do anything wrong".  okay, whatever lady... would you rather i run them down and then apologize that they were idiots for being on my property in the first place?  funny thing is, it's the kids i feel sorry for.. they are going to be so ill prepared to face the realities of the world. note to my neighbor, your kids aren't angels, nobody's kids are (including mine). teach them some responsibility and respect or it's going to be a long hard life for them when the real world comes up and smacks them in the face.

anybody wanna buy a house?

seen on a road somewhere in new mexico

so i asked a few friends in the past week or so "whatever happened to ted williams?"  universally the reply i received back was "who?"

it was just a few months ago that the story about a homeless dj named ted williams captured our imagination. yes we are a nation that wants to believe in the miracle of the downtrodden rising up to conquer their demons. we are also a nation with a very short attention span, even more so when it comes to 'feel good' stories. in this instance however it was a story that quickly crumbled like a house of cards as we realized teds problems were deeper than simply being homeless.  

for many of us the cheers of encouragement were tempered with  fears that ted was being used by those offering outrageous opportunities, the likes of which most will never have, solely for the positive unearned publicity the company would attract. i hate to say it, but i was right.

so where is ted today? honetly i couldn't tell you, and frankly it doesn't really matter to the point of this post. it is not for me to say whether or not ted deserved a second chance, but i can say that in my lifetime, never have i known of someone less prepared to answer the door when opportunity knocked. the lessons to be learned from the ted williams story are simple:

1. you can't change the stripes on a zebra.

2. when opportunity knocks will you be prepared to answer the call or will you be ted?