Real Joe

Our soldiers have already asked for forgiveness for what we’re going to do to the Iraqi army. – Bryan P. McCoy, Lieut. Colonel, USMC, quoted in last week’s Time.

It’s an interesting way to bring God into it, but I guess it’s how you need to be thinking if you’re going into combat. Except that sometimes, for some men, it contributes to the mentality that created the My Lai Massacre, which “took place on March 16, 1968, and was reported in the The New York Times the following day” with this headline: Vietnamese Say G.I.’s Slew 567 in Town.

The Sunday’s NYTimes Book Review takes a look at the books “Jarhead” by Anthony Swofford and “Baghdad Express” by Joel Turnipseed, both Gulf War vets.

I thought this trend faded when Bill Clinton left office. Duh. The Buddy System; Sex in High School and College: What’s Love Got to Do With It? (Originally appeared in the Jan. 19th Washington Post.)

Since hooking up need not involve intercourse, pregnancy isn’t a worry. Oral sex is an acceptable alternative, and young women absolutely don’t consider it sex. “If we did, we’d be having sex all the time. We still have a shred of self-respect,” one freshman says… No one uses a condom during oral sex, girls say. “That would be considered absurd,” says one. Although this generation has had more sex education than any previous one, a sizable number aren’t aware that disease can be transmitted by mouth and that condoms reduce that risk.

In the March 10 issue of Utne Web Watch, a review of the website, Scarleteen: Scarleteen editor and founder Heather Corinna is my new hero! Her Web site, “committed to delivering the best contemporary teen sex ed on the Net,” is easily the most impressive sex education tool I’ve seen.

I like what I see on this site. It’s primarily for young women but there is a Boyfriends section for guys. Their Sex Readiness Test is terrific. I’ll ask my wife to see if she thinks we should steer our teenaged daughter there.

There’s partial text of last week’s Sports Illustrated cover story, The Rise and Fall of Kirby Puckett, in their baseball section. Article author Frank Dufour has a Q&A, as does contributing writer Steve Rushin… whose piece contains this quote: “Idolatry is really not good for anyone,” as Washington Wizards assistant coach John Bach said of Michael Jordan in Monday’s New York Times. “Not even the idols.”

Last November’s St. Paul Pioneer Press article The secret life of Kirby Puckett by Bob Sansevere is still up on their web site.

Bill Doherty’s post on Putting Family First’s weblog links to a recent article in the NY Times titled Bring Back the Sabbath. After I read it, I decided to spend most of my time on Sunday just catching up on my reading. Ahhhh!

Today’s Future Tense radio show on MPR, Something new in Weblogs, contains a brief clip from my audioblog on Tuesday. (Minutes 1:25 to 1:50.)

“Weblogs often get into the minutiae of everyday life. An audio entry from Minnesota blogger Griff Wigley is along those lines.” No mention of Real Joe, but that’s understandable since the show is not meant to promote but inform.

audblog audio post Part I

audblog audio post Part II

Transcript:

I’ve been listening to a set of audiotapes called Mental Toughness. Yesterday, the sports psychologist told a story about a professional tennis player he worked with who came to him for help because he had a dismal record in tiebreakers. The prescription: say “I love tiebreakers” 25 times a day and make a little sign to put up on his mirror. The tennis pro thought this was ridiculous. “I hate tiebreakers. How the hell is lying to myself 25 times a day going to help?” But he did it anyway and after a few weeks, he won a couple. He didn’t believe that the strategy was making a difference until one day in the middle of a tough match he realized he’d been saying to himself, “If I can just get to tiebreaker, I know I can beat this guy.”

It occurred to me after listening to this tape that something similar has been happening to me. Quite a few years ago I admitted to myself that I was basically selfish, just like my old man. No guilt trip, just an acknowledgement that “Okay, he was a selfish bastard and this apple hasn’t fallen too far from the tree.” Somewhere along the line it occurred to me that whenever I went out of my way to do something for my wife, I’d jokingly say to her, “I’m such a thoughtful husband.” She’d laugh and kiss me sweetly nearly every time, so, like a lab rat, I’ve kept it up, and even started doing the same thing — “I’m such a thoughtful father” — with my teenaged daughter. It seems to be making a difference. I’m not exactly St. Francis of Assisi yet, but I’m pretty sure I’m less of an asshole than I used to be.

I’ve always thought that affirmations were a stupid, new agey technique. The affirmation bullshit generator on my Real Joe web site gets constant traffic: click the button and it generates phrases like “Today I will embrace my perceptual wisdom” or “Today I will manifest my interrelated essence.”

But now I’m not so sure, and since I’m making progress on some relaxation and concentration techniques — I’ve had a very good week of racquetball — I might as well give it a go. “I am mentally tough.” I’m not, of course, I choke all the time and get nervous very easily but the idea is to act as if, so maybe I’ll try that.

What about this problem I have about not being disciplined in my daily schedule? How about, “I love being disciplined!” Ah, no, that’s not quite it… makes it sound like my wife and I… well, you get the idea. Maybe, “I live a disciplined schedule.” Closer. I’ll try it till something better occurs to me.

That’s it for today, March 14, 2003. I’m Griff Wigley for Real Joe. Important stuff. Plain talk. Ordinary guys.

Today’s edition of Jon Gordon’s Future Tense on Minnesota Public Radio is supposed to be an interview with Noah Glass of Audioblogger, along with a clip from my first Real Joe audblog audio post on Tuesday. The show typically airs at 8:20 AM on KNOW 91.1 in the Twin Cities, but the site also says that “Future Tense is heard in the United States during broadcasts of the CBC’s As It Happens, and in Minnesota on MPR news stations during Morning Edition.”

I’ll link to the Real Audio file as soon as they put it up.

Good to see some guys doing the public service bit on prostate cancer prevention. This one’s harnessing his love of motorcycles to the cause: Riding For Awareness.

And colleague Kim Garretson is harnessing his love of pulp fiction magazine covers to it with his site called m a n s g l a n d, along with a book titled, Niches of Clarity at Gunflint “… a sardonic view of the infuriatingly awful healthcare practices and lazy cavalier behavior by men that together give us today’s prostate cancer epidemic.”

Found on DickStaub.com: All this war talk’s got me all upset. You know it’s not a surprise though because we are being led by a Bush, a Dick and a Colin. (Applause) Am I lying? It’s the truth, right. It’s true! And of course the only bush I trust is my own. – Whoopi Goldberg, anti-war rant, Letterman Show March 11th, 2003

In the Strib’s Opinion page Shortcuts today: You ought to have gone in with me when I was president, to San Francisco. We rode in — I picture the place well. The Secret Service police keep the people back. And this one demonstrator was standing there, the worst-looking woman I’ve ever seen in my life. And she had a big sign — she came running up to the side of the car — saying, ‘Stay out of my womb.’ No problem, lady. – Former President George H.W. Bush, in a lecture last month at Tufts University.

The Strib probably used that quip from Dubya’s pappy because they thought it was inappropriate. I thought it was pretty funny. Barbara Bush probably did, too.

“God lives, He is there. He answers prayer. We are so blessed to have this miracle given to us.” - Ed Smart, the father of Elizabeth Smart, the 15-year-old girl who vanished from her bedroom nine months ago, and was found alive yesterday.

I hate to criticize this grateful, gracious, and evidently loving father in his hour of joy, but this is a crock. Why not ask God what the hell He was thinking of in the first place when He allowed the girl to be kidnapped?

The more this “God answers prayers” bit gets played up in the media over events like this, the more hurtful it is to all the other parents who’ve had their kids kidnapped, prayed their hearts out for a safe return, only to have their kids found dead. They’re either left with blaming God and possibly suffering a loss of faith at a critical time, or else they think that they must be to blame somehow, otherwise God would have prevented the tragedy… and so they’re left with debilitating guilt.