“The Contest”–My favorite Seinfeld episode of all time

“The Contest,” perhaps the most legendary episode of Seinfeld, portrayed Elaine, Kramer, George and Jerry betting on who could go the longest without masturbating (though the word “masturbation” is never actually used). Watch the hilarious opening scene of this November 18, 1992 episode by clicking on the play button below:

Though the winner of the competition isn’t actually revealed in “The Contest,” it was intimated that George held out the longest, a result confirmed in later episodes. However, in the series finale (aired on May 14, 1998), George admits that he cheated and was not the master of his domain after all.

Saturday, March 31st, 2007

Lady Vols advance to NCAA Final Four for 17th time

Yes, I’m a big Lady Vol basketball fan. I went to school at the University of Tennessee from 1961-1964, and my first wife, Shannon, worked as a fund raiser for the Lady Vols in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In the process I’ve become a great admirer of what Coach Pat Summitt has accomplished as the all-time winningest coach in NCAA basketball history during her 33 years at UT. A snippet from the ESPN story about last night’s win over Ole Miss in the finals of the Dayton Regional Tourney below:

DAYTON, Ohio — Pat Summitt owns as impressive a past as any person in the history of women’s college basketball. Candace Parker has as bright a future as it’s possible to imagine a player possessing. All of which makes the intersection of those two time lines a pretty good place to call the present for the Tennessee Lady Volunteers.

With Parker putting on a display for the ages with 24 points, 14 rebounds and five blocks, and Summitt pushing all the right buttons from the sideline, Tennessee rolled to its 17th Final Four with a breathtakingly dominant 98-62 win against a Mississippi team that had knocked off Maryland and Oklahoma to reach the Elite Eight.

The Lady Vols are peaking at just the right moment this season, and I’m holding a vision of them going all the way and winning their seventh national championship next week in Cleveland. Go Lady Vols!

Wednesday, March 28th, 2007

“Our grandchildren are counting on us,” says Al Gore

As Al Gore prepared to testify before Congress yesterday, he had with him 519,414 of our signatures on a message to Congress demanding immediate action to solve the climate crisis. You can send your own message by clicking here. Watch some of his passionate testimony below:

Even after Al Gore’s clarion call to Congress, our so-called political leaders are likely to busy themselves rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic while the human race moves ever closer to becoming the first species to create its own extinction. If we really want to stop global warming, we must each take personal responsibility and do it ourselves. And we must continue to support Al Gore in his quest to awaken our fellow citizens to the gravity of this matter and the need to take immediate action.

Thursday, March 22nd, 2007

Here’s to the crazy ones!

An inspirational video for your viewing enjoyment.

“Here’s to the crazy ones . . . the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers. The round pegs in the square hole . . . the ones who see things differently . . .”

Almost enough to get me to go out and buy an Apple. By the way, my wife Shonnie recommended this video.

Thursday, March 22nd, 2007

I become what I think about

This morning I responded to a query from a writer working on an article for Real Simple magazine. I share that response with you below:

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Hi, Josh. I am responding to your query regarding prolonging career, family, health, household and more for an article in Real Simple. I am a 63-year-old husband, father, grandfather, blogger, author, trail runner, handball player and political activist. My words and thoughts have appeared in a number of publications, including the Christian Science Monitor, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Asheville Citizen-Times, YES! Magazine, Common Dreams website and numerous other print and electronic publications. In addition, my wife, Shonnie Lavender, and I have published a book titled I Do! I Do! The Marriage Vow Workbook. I have appeared on NOW with Bill Moyers and with Shonnie in an episode of the PBS show Simple Living. My response to your query:

• Aging is inevitable; growing old is not. At my age I remain a very good athlete, my weight is about what it was when I graduated from high school and I take no drugs (well, OK, some caffeine each morning, but that’s it). I have run a couple of marathons since I turned 50 and in the past few years have completed several 18+ mile trail runs that were actually more challenging than the marathons. In addition, I play competitive handball at the local YMCA a couple of times a week. And my wife and I have a satisfying sex life. Obviously, staying active, eating well and refusing to head for the rocking chair as I became older has a great deal to do with my youthfulness and vitality. More than that, however, was my development of new attitudes about aging, that becoming 50 or 60 (or whatever the milestone might be) does not mean I have to give into cultural beliefs about how folks of that age should behave.
• I become what I think about. I believe that you create what you focus on. Should I focus on a fear of getting old, becoming weak physically, suffering from dementia, needing drugs to control blood pressure, etc., that is exactly what I will create. If I focus on being active, healthy, positive, loving, grateful, that is what I create.
• I have the power to create exactly the life I want. The main thing holding folks of any age back from living the life they truly want is what’s going on between their ears—negative beliefs about themselves (e.g., I’m helpless), others (e.g., They’re out to get me), life (e.g., Life’s a bitch and then you die). When you let go of these negative beliefs you gain the freedom to be who you really are, to live as you were intended to live before you took them on and, thereby, created your own prison.
• There’s more going on here than humans can comprehend. Though I’m not religious, I am spiritual and believe that we are all connected, that my welfare is connected with yours and with that of every living thing on earth. I don’t try to figure it out, I merely accept that there are some things my human mind does not fully understand.
• I am here to be of service. I am blessed with gifts that I am here to share with others. It’s like Frederick Buechner said: The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet. When I leave this bodily form, I want to know I’ve given it all I’ve got. I want to be used up. I want to smile broadly and utter the word YES! as I draw my last breath.

Thanks for the opportunity to express these thoughts with you, Josh. I would be glad to discuss this matter further at your convenience.

Tuesday, March 20th, 2007

Why 2008 won’t be like 1984

The provocative (some might say subversive) 1984 ad from Apple is back, this time as a political ad attacking the presidential candidacy of Hillary Clinton and supporting Barack Obama. Check it out by clicking the play button below.

Obama’s campaign claims it has nothing to do with this video.

Monday, March 19th, 2007

Let those who would plunge us into war lead the first charge.

Reposted on the fourth anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War. This commentary first appeared in the August 31, 2002 edition of the Asheville Citizen-Times.

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When the rich wage war it’s the poor who die.
—Jean-Paul Sartre

Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of their way and let them have it.
—President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Having failed to capture Osama bin Laden as promised, President Bush has revived a tried-and-true boogeyman—Saddam Hussein, the mother of all despots. Yet does it really matter who the “bad guy” is? We’ve stockpiled a lot of bombs and missiles; we’ve declared war without end; we’ve got to attack somebody.

When Bush orders our troops into Iraq (according to some sources this has already begun on a limited scale), do you think that his children or any of the other Bush clan will be among the first wave of troops? Do you think that any of the presidential advisers who are cheering loudest for war will have a child whose life will be at risk? And what about the kids or grandkids of our senators and representatives in Congress? Many of these folks seem to be perfectly willing to send our offspring into battle. If their progeny were at risk, however, I suspect they’d be a bit more judicious.

If Bush and his cohorts are so anxious to get it on with Saddam, I have a more modest proposal than Middle East conflagration: tag team wrestling on international TV. In the red, white, and blue tights we have “Gorgeous” George Bush and Karl “King Kong” Rove, and in the black tights, Osama “Yo Mama” bin Laden and Saddam “Bruiser” Hussein. Wrestle to the finish. The losers cry “uncle” and refrain from building or using weapons of mass destruction for the rest of their days. No innocent bystanders hurt, in fact nothing hurt but perhaps a little pride.

Recently I met a small group of committed women who are walking across the nation for peace. They departed from California on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, January 21, 2002, and reached Asheville after seven months of walking on their way to Washington, D.C. One of the women spoke of breaking bread with folks of disparate political, economic, and religious backgrounds in many towns and cities across our nation. During her remarks she revealed a common thread in the conversations she’d had: “Everyone really wants peace. In many respects we’re all the same; we want to love and be loved. Our beliefs just get in the way.”

Not too many decades ago, some white politicians in the South retained power by practicing the politics of divide and conquer—playing whites against the blacks. You may not have much, but at least “you’re better than him; you’ve been born with white skin,” they exclaimed. And of course, the hope was that the white folks would regard the black folks as scapegoats for whatever was not working in their lives, while the wealthy politicians, at the top of the heap, endeavored to maintain the status quo.

Now the strategy is a bit more complex what with our various ethnic backgrounds, our multitude of spiritual beliefs, our different social groups, our divergent political persuasions. But as long as those in power can keep us fighting among ourselves, we frequently don’t take the opportunity to discern who is making out like a bandit (sometimes literally). And who is sending our kids off to a fight in which only the arms manufacturers, the energy corporations, other corporate powers, and the politicians have a significant stake. Saddam is not moving our jobs overseas. Saddam is not diverting U.S. tax dollars from health and education toward the acquisition of more sophisticated weaponry. Saddam is not plundering American corporations for his own benefit.

If those of us who really oppose this war stand up, we can stop the madness advocated by Bush and Lieberman and Lott. We can keep our young men and women (and the people of Iraq) from harm’s way. We can resist. We can let our voices be heard. We can support those who refuse to serve. When the drums roll and the trumpets blare and the flags unfurl, war may seem a patriotic and noble venture. But how will we feel, I wonder, when our kids start coming home in body bags?

Saturday, March 17th, 2007

A Totally Different Game

Heath Shuler, WNC’s political draft pick, is making his comeback in D.C. This time, however, all of Western North Carolina is watching.

The highly-acclaimed rookie feints to his left, rolls to his right, then throws down the middle. No, this isn’t Redskins spring training camp. It’s our own Heath Shuler in his debut performance in the blood sport of national politics. And many in Western North Carolina are cheering him on, anticipating a long and illustrious career of service in Congress that far outshines his brief stint with Washington’s NFL team.

Elected in the November 2006 mid-term rout that sent Republicans to the locker room while Democrats did the victory dance in the House and the Senate, conservative Democrat Shuler scored big for his team, winning 54 percent of the vote in North Carolina’s District 11. With Shuler following much of the traditional Republican playbook, including his stands on guns, abortion and family values, some have questioned whether he really should be in the Democratic lineup at all. Lest we forget, however, conservative Southerners were major players on the Dems’ roster until the late 1960s and early 1970s. When the Democratic Party decided to integrate their team during that era, many conservatives in the South switched sides and signed with the Repubs. Perhaps it’s time that some young conservatives in these parts, especially those who embrace people of color, come home to the squad of their forebears.

I’ll readily admit that I don’t agree with Congressman Shuler on some of the plays he’s called. I support outlawing automatic weapons and making all guns more difficult to obtain. I think women should have the right to choose. And I believe that there is no single set of “family values” that could conceivably fit all 300 million Americans. Nonetheless, I’m hopeful that our new representative will provide what many fans—progressives, moderates and conservatives alike—yearn for from our elected officials.

• Authenticity—being real with us rather than trying to be all things to all people
• Honesty—telling us the plain, unvarnished truth, not the focus group tested pabulum that obfuscates facts, twists reality and says little or nothing
• Integrity—being true to oneself, living up to one’s highest ethics
• Humility—remembering one’s roots and refusing to fall victim to selfishness, greed, egotism and hubris, traits all too common inside the D.C. beltway
• Public service—a willingness to be a true public servant rather than a self-serving politician, to listen to our needs and be responsive to them

I hold out hope that Congressman Shuler will adhere to this code of conduct. Based on his early votes, it appears that he is firm in his conservative stands on social issues but that he is willing to support progressive measures as well, such as raising the minimum wage, protecting the environment and moving from petroleum to cleaner fuels.

One thing that Congressman Shuler and all of his Democratic teammates should keep in mind: Americans voted for positive change on November 7, 2006. We voted for an end to the war in Iraq. We voted to eliminate corruption in Congress and remove unethical politicians (including former Representative Charles Taylor). We voted to eradicate the influence of lobbyists and their financial largesse on our elected officials. We voted to restore our constitutional safeguards that have been terrorized by those who have used the events of 9/11 to further their political agendas. We voted for Congress to reclaim its power and rein in the President-who-would-be-king.

If the Democrats believe that the electorate merely want them to cautiously run the ball up the middle time and time again, they are sorely mistaken. And if they (and Congressman Shuler) don’t play the game of governance with passion, commitment and intestinal fortitude, the Democrats will be vanquished by the voters in 2008, and Mr. Shuler will find himself on the sidelines once more.

Note: I contributed this commentary to the premiere issue (March/April 2007) of WNC Magazine now on newstands in Western North Carolina.

Saturday, March 17th, 2007