When I was a brand new lawyer, in the 1970's, personal injury cases would settle with the plaintiff signing a release. This was before computer generated documents, and so the release typically consisted of a one-page "fill in the blank" form. One would insert the plaintiff's name, the name of the person being released, the date and location of the accident. The plaintiff would then sign the release, the insurance company would issue it's check and that would be that.
But times have changed and life is no longer so simple. Now when a plaintiff settles a personal injury claim, he typically receives a ten or twenty page release, carefully prepared by an insurance company attorney who apparently has a lot of time on his hands. The release is broken up into different sections and subsections and even subsections to the subsections. Everything is organized using a sequence of carefully numbered paragraphs that all look very official.
But for me the most interesting change in this new generation of releases is that the plaintiff no longer simply discharges the defendant for injuries caused in a specific accident. Now there is typically an additional paragraph in which the plaintiff releases the defendant from any and all causes of action he might have against the defendant "from the beginning of the world."
Yes, that's right. The beginning of the world. Not wrongs committed within the last ten years or fifty years or one hundred years, but going back all the way to "the beginning of the world."
I don't know when the world began, but I suspect that none of my clients were alive back then, let alone the defendants that they are suing. Yet these new releases allow for the possibility that the plaintiff and the defendant walked with dinosaurs during the Mesozoic age. And not only that, but that the defendant did the plaintiff some wrong way back then, so that now a historic cause of action needs to be released in this, the 21st century.
Is this ridiculous? Absolutely.
No wonder lawyers are so disliked
Friday, October 15, 2010
Saturday, July 10, 2010
I WAS NOT TRANSFORMED
When I came to my office in downtown Chicago this morning, there was a lot going on. As it turns out, the film Transformers 3 was being shot here.
If what I saw was any indication, it appears that Chicago will suffer much damage because of these transformers. The streets were full of “craters” which looked like bombs had fallen on LaSalle and Washington Streets. Some craters contained parts of cars or bicycles. In the meantime, twenty year-old kids, wearing baseball hats, were telling the passers by that they could not take photographs. The rebels among us took pictures anyway. But most people submitted to this pretentious display of authority and put their cameras away.
Helicopters flew overhead, presumably taking some shots of my destroyed city. Motor vehicles moved very s-l-o-w-l-y around the craters, but no doubt they will appear to be moving at forty or fifty miles per hour when the film is finally released. A forklift pushed a van sideways on its tires. I can only guess that in the movie this van will have first been hit by something or other.
A lot of people seemed to be working on this film. Trailers were everywhere, but alas, no stars. Perhaps they were sleeping in at The Four Seasons while lesser beings completed the grunt work. And transformers? Not a single one in sight.
I did not see Transformers, or for that matter, Transformers 2. I do not expect that I will see Transformers 3 either. Or maybe curiousity will get the best of me because of what I observed this morning. Maybe Transformers 3 will even be in 3-D; God knows everything else is.
I love movies, but unfortunately cannot find anything to see. Everything at the theater has a 2, 3 or 4 tagged onto the title. Or the film is about vampires. They call these “popcorn” movies. That means you don’t have to think as the reel unspools; you just have to eat.
Somewhere in this great country a man or woman is shooting a full-length feature film with an HD digital camera. But downtown Chicago has not been blocked off for the effort, nor has traffic been redirected. No permit has been secured, and if the police ask what’s going on, the canned response is that they are shooting a wedding video. The film may or may not be autobiographical, but at the very least it will be deeply personal. It will be character driven and will most likely deal with a major change in somebody’s life, or maybe even redemption. The entire cost of he film will be less than one of those “craters” I saw this morning.
Sorry Transformers, but that’s the film I want to see.
If what I saw was any indication, it appears that Chicago will suffer much damage because of these transformers. The streets were full of “craters” which looked like bombs had fallen on LaSalle and Washington Streets. Some craters contained parts of cars or bicycles. In the meantime, twenty year-old kids, wearing baseball hats, were telling the passers by that they could not take photographs. The rebels among us took pictures anyway. But most people submitted to this pretentious display of authority and put their cameras away.
Helicopters flew overhead, presumably taking some shots of my destroyed city. Motor vehicles moved very s-l-o-w-l-y around the craters, but no doubt they will appear to be moving at forty or fifty miles per hour when the film is finally released. A forklift pushed a van sideways on its tires. I can only guess that in the movie this van will have first been hit by something or other.
A lot of people seemed to be working on this film. Trailers were everywhere, but alas, no stars. Perhaps they were sleeping in at The Four Seasons while lesser beings completed the grunt work. And transformers? Not a single one in sight.
I did not see Transformers, or for that matter, Transformers 2. I do not expect that I will see Transformers 3 either. Or maybe curiousity will get the best of me because of what I observed this morning. Maybe Transformers 3 will even be in 3-D; God knows everything else is.
I love movies, but unfortunately cannot find anything to see. Everything at the theater has a 2, 3 or 4 tagged onto the title. Or the film is about vampires. They call these “popcorn” movies. That means you don’t have to think as the reel unspools; you just have to eat.
Somewhere in this great country a man or woman is shooting a full-length feature film with an HD digital camera. But downtown Chicago has not been blocked off for the effort, nor has traffic been redirected. No permit has been secured, and if the police ask what’s going on, the canned response is that they are shooting a wedding video. The film may or may not be autobiographical, but at the very least it will be deeply personal. It will be character driven and will most likely deal with a major change in somebody’s life, or maybe even redemption. The entire cost of he film will be less than one of those “craters” I saw this morning.
Sorry Transformers, but that’s the film I want to see.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Herman's Hermits
In the 1960’s there was a “British invasion” of music into the United States.
It started with the Beatles of course, followed by other talented performers that included The Dave Clark Five, Gerry & the Pacemakers, Freddy and the Dreamers and of course, Herman’s Hermits.
The lead singer of Herman’s Hermits was then a teenager by the name of Peter Noone. Peter is now 62 years of age, but he still tours with a band that continues to be called Herman’s Hermits. Last night he performed in a small park adjacent to the Village Hall in the suburb in which I live, Elk Grove Village, Illinois.
The park was also next to the public library. Before the show I was killing some time in there. At one point I was in the same room as an Asian man of about 40, who looked out the windows and wondered about the commotion outside. He asked me what was going on. I told him that Herman’s Hermits were about to perform.
“Who?” he asked?
“Herman’s Hermits.”
“Who are they?”
“You know. Sixties band. They sung songs like Mrs. Brown You Have a Lovely Daughter.”
He had never heard of that song.
It was to be a free concert, but the weather did not cooperate. It rained. And when the band started to perform about half an hour late, it was on a small, portable, covered stage with the Union Jack serving as a backdrop. Peter then began to sing The Ballad of New Orleans, an old Johnny Horton song about the war of 1812.
We fired our guns and the British kept a comin’
There wasn’t quite as many as there was a while ago.
Suddenly Peter quit singing. “I always hated that song,” he declared. But later he would congratulate America on its July 4th birthday. Then he followed this up with a reference to the musical British Invasion of the 1960’s, “which was more successful.”
But here’s the thing: in the 1960’s Peter Noone and Herman’s Hermits were a headline act. In 2010 they were a freebee concert in the park. And yet the show that Peter put on with his current version of the Hermits was as enthusiastic and uncompromising as any performance I have ever seen. One sensed that Peter just loved singing the old songs; his and others.
And then the magic occurred. My wife and daughter moved up close to the stage and I followed. They then began to dance, not with each other but by themselves. As I watched my wife move, she did so in the exact same way as when she was a teenager and we were dating. Then Peter encouraged everybody to sing with him and everybody did. All of the hits: Silhouettes, Henry the Eighth, There's a Kind of Hush and more. And for one miraculous instant, time flipped backward.
Yes, we were all young again. In that wonderful, marvelous, magical rain.
It started with the Beatles of course, followed by other talented performers that included The Dave Clark Five, Gerry & the Pacemakers, Freddy and the Dreamers and of course, Herman’s Hermits.
The lead singer of Herman’s Hermits was then a teenager by the name of Peter Noone. Peter is now 62 years of age, but he still tours with a band that continues to be called Herman’s Hermits. Last night he performed in a small park adjacent to the Village Hall in the suburb in which I live, Elk Grove Village, Illinois.
The park was also next to the public library. Before the show I was killing some time in there. At one point I was in the same room as an Asian man of about 40, who looked out the windows and wondered about the commotion outside. He asked me what was going on. I told him that Herman’s Hermits were about to perform.
“Who?” he asked?
“Herman’s Hermits.”
“Who are they?”
“You know. Sixties band. They sung songs like Mrs. Brown You Have a Lovely Daughter.”
He had never heard of that song.
It was to be a free concert, but the weather did not cooperate. It rained. And when the band started to perform about half an hour late, it was on a small, portable, covered stage with the Union Jack serving as a backdrop. Peter then began to sing The Ballad of New Orleans, an old Johnny Horton song about the war of 1812.
We fired our guns and the British kept a comin’
There wasn’t quite as many as there was a while ago.
Suddenly Peter quit singing. “I always hated that song,” he declared. But later he would congratulate America on its July 4th birthday. Then he followed this up with a reference to the musical British Invasion of the 1960’s, “which was more successful.”
But here’s the thing: in the 1960’s Peter Noone and Herman’s Hermits were a headline act. In 2010 they were a freebee concert in the park. And yet the show that Peter put on with his current version of the Hermits was as enthusiastic and uncompromising as any performance I have ever seen. One sensed that Peter just loved singing the old songs; his and others.
And then the magic occurred. My wife and daughter moved up close to the stage and I followed. They then began to dance, not with each other but by themselves. As I watched my wife move, she did so in the exact same way as when she was a teenager and we were dating. Then Peter encouraged everybody to sing with him and everybody did. All of the hits: Silhouettes, Henry the Eighth, There's a Kind of Hush and more. And for one miraculous instant, time flipped backward.
Yes, we were all young again. In that wonderful, marvelous, magical rain.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Bricks and Urns
1. Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door. True or false?
2. No good deed goes unpunished. True or false?
The answer to the first quote is false. As every businessman knows, it isn’t the quality of the product that drives sales but the success of the marketing campaign. Nowhere has this been more evidence than with the Chicago National League Ball Club, LLC, more commonly known as the Chicago Cubs baseball team.
The Cubs have not won a World Series for over 100 years. They have not won the National League pennant for almost 65 years. If they were in the mousetrap business, this would mark an appallingly long time of waiting to catch a mouse. But business is good nonetheless. Indeed, the Cubs have drawn over three million fans into their park for six years in a row. They have not drawn less then two million fans in fourteen years. So powerful is the Cub magnet that even a homeless person in Chicago will scrape up a c-note to watch the lovable “Cubbies” lose in the rain.
The better baseball team is on the south side of Chicago, namely the Chicago White Sox. But even with a more modern ballpark and a winning team, the Sox have struggled to compete with the “Cubbies.” Example: In 2005 the Chicago White Sox won the American League pennant and swept the Houston Astros in the World Series. It was obviously a good year for the southsiders who drew 2,342,834 into their park. But on the north side the “Cubbies” experienced more than 3,100,000 fans moving through the Wrigley Field turnstiles. And this with a team that was fourth in its division, unable to win more games that it had lost.
It was not always this way. For every year from 1953 to 1967, the Cubs failed to draw even a million fans into their park. That was before the marketeers took over.
This year, 2010, we have been told (or sold, depending upon how one looks at it) that being a Cub fan is “a way of life.” This "way of life" does not end with ticket and concession sales. The “Cubbies” now operate “Cub Stores” at which they sell Cub paraphernalia.
Indeed, the marketing of Cub merchandise has become a cradle to grave operation. There are bottles and bibs for newborn Cub fans. And at the other end of life’s spectrum is Cub cremation urns. Holy cow.
The answer to the second quote is true. I am a season ticket holder with the Chicago White Sox – Chicago’s better team. And although the White Sox are winning, it is sometimes difficult to even give Sox tickets away because everybody in Chicago wants to see the “Cubbies” instead. There are three exceptions to this rule, and those are the three games that the Cubs play against the Sox at U.S. Cellular Field each year. One of those games was last night. I gave one of my valued tickets to my wife, a Cub fan, and took her to the game. How nice of me!
But the White Sox beat the “Cubbies” and in the process of doing so extended a winning streak to eleven (11) games. And so by the time the ballpark lights went out, my wife was threatening to place my cremation ashes into one of those Cub urns. In retrospect I clearly should have given my prized ticket to somebody else.
There is only one solution, and that is that I must outlive my wife. This will be difficult because women generally live longer than men and I am already five years older than Ms. Sipsa. So starting tomorrow I am working out every day. I am also reducing red meat and introducing more vegetables and fiber into my diet. A Cub urn to a White Sox fan is akin to a cross being placed before a vampire.
But on the way out of the ballpark I discovered a means of revenge. Surrounding the 2005 World Series statue are a series of bricks, purchased by Sox fans and upon which are inscribed the names of Sox faithful. Thus for a small donation to White Sox Charities, Ms. Sipsa can be permanently enshrined as a fan to Chicago’s better team. Moreover, there are a lot of bricks there. So unless Ms. Sipsa has the patience to visit the park regularly and read each and every one of them, she will never know.
Go Sox!
2. No good deed goes unpunished. True or false?
The answer to the first quote is false. As every businessman knows, it isn’t the quality of the product that drives sales but the success of the marketing campaign. Nowhere has this been more evidence than with the Chicago National League Ball Club, LLC, more commonly known as the Chicago Cubs baseball team.
The Cubs have not won a World Series for over 100 years. They have not won the National League pennant for almost 65 years. If they were in the mousetrap business, this would mark an appallingly long time of waiting to catch a mouse. But business is good nonetheless. Indeed, the Cubs have drawn over three million fans into their park for six years in a row. They have not drawn less then two million fans in fourteen years. So powerful is the Cub magnet that even a homeless person in Chicago will scrape up a c-note to watch the lovable “Cubbies” lose in the rain.
The better baseball team is on the south side of Chicago, namely the Chicago White Sox. But even with a more modern ballpark and a winning team, the Sox have struggled to compete with the “Cubbies.” Example: In 2005 the Chicago White Sox won the American League pennant and swept the Houston Astros in the World Series. It was obviously a good year for the southsiders who drew 2,342,834 into their park. But on the north side the “Cubbies” experienced more than 3,100,000 fans moving through the Wrigley Field turnstiles. And this with a team that was fourth in its division, unable to win more games that it had lost.
It was not always this way. For every year from 1953 to 1967, the Cubs failed to draw even a million fans into their park. That was before the marketeers took over.
This year, 2010, we have been told (or sold, depending upon how one looks at it) that being a Cub fan is “a way of life.” This "way of life" does not end with ticket and concession sales. The “Cubbies” now operate “Cub Stores” at which they sell Cub paraphernalia.
Indeed, the marketing of Cub merchandise has become a cradle to grave operation. There are bottles and bibs for newborn Cub fans. And at the other end of life’s spectrum is Cub cremation urns. Holy cow.
The answer to the second quote is true. I am a season ticket holder with the Chicago White Sox – Chicago’s better team. And although the White Sox are winning, it is sometimes difficult to even give Sox tickets away because everybody in Chicago wants to see the “Cubbies” instead. There are three exceptions to this rule, and those are the three games that the Cubs play against the Sox at U.S. Cellular Field each year. One of those games was last night. I gave one of my valued tickets to my wife, a Cub fan, and took her to the game. How nice of me!
But the White Sox beat the “Cubbies” and in the process of doing so extended a winning streak to eleven (11) games. And so by the time the ballpark lights went out, my wife was threatening to place my cremation ashes into one of those Cub urns. In retrospect I clearly should have given my prized ticket to somebody else.
There is only one solution, and that is that I must outlive my wife. This will be difficult because women generally live longer than men and I am already five years older than Ms. Sipsa. So starting tomorrow I am working out every day. I am also reducing red meat and introducing more vegetables and fiber into my diet. A Cub urn to a White Sox fan is akin to a cross being placed before a vampire.
But on the way out of the ballpark I discovered a means of revenge. Surrounding the 2005 World Series statue are a series of bricks, purchased by Sox fans and upon which are inscribed the names of Sox faithful. Thus for a small donation to White Sox Charities, Ms. Sipsa can be permanently enshrined as a fan to Chicago’s better team. Moreover, there are a lot of bricks there. So unless Ms. Sipsa has the patience to visit the park regularly and read each and every one of them, she will never know.
Go Sox!
Saturday, June 26, 2010
A Wine & Cheese Woodstock
Mapquest declares that the travel time from my house in Elk Grove Village, Illinois to Ravinia Park is 42 minutes. Last night it proved to be about three hours, roughly the time of a flight from Chicago to Las Vegas.
It wasn't pretty. And blame it on the blues, the Moody Blues. To say that traffic congested in Highland Park, home of the Ravinia festival, would be an understatement. The Ravinia parking lots were filled and it seemed as though the police were just looking for some place to put everybody. And so we inched through the village for an hour or more before being directed to the Highland Park High School which was miles away from Ravinia. We left Elk Grove Village at 5:00 p.m. for an 8:00 p.m. concert. We barely arrived in time.
Ravinia Park is kind of a unique place. It consists of a 3,200 seat "pavilion" where the musical performance can be observed in a traditional theater setting. Everybody else brings tables, chairs, picnic baskets and blankets and settles in on the remaining 36 acres of lawn. An upscale crowd is attracted to this venue. The appearance is reminiscent of Woodstock except that nobody is naked, everybody is clean, and wine and cheese are being consumed instead of LSD and marijuana.
By the time we got to Ravinia, we weren't half a million strong. Or maybe we were. God knows it was packed in there and we looked jealously at little patches of grass that were too small to hold our party of four. And so we walked further and further to the outer reaches, near the perimeter fence, where we laid claim to a picnic table and rejoiced in our good fortune. But once the Moody Blues started to play, we realized why the table was available. There were no speakers in this immediate area. The music could be heard from other more distant speakers, but faintly. The Moody Blues were our dinner music
In some sense the Moody Blues seemed out of place at Ravinia. You see Ravinia is the summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, so classical music tends to be the order of the day. On the other hand the music of the Moody Blues has traditionally been a blend of rock and classical orchestration. But when I walked to the Pavilion area to try and get a look at the band, it seemed that the orchestra was probably on tape.
The Moody Blues are old now. And so was their crowd. Their first set lasted about 45 minutes and then they took a break. They probably needed it. Then they played a second set. And about halfway through the second set people started to leave the festival in droves, like they were trying to beat a 10:00 p.m. curfew. This made no sense to me after having battled to get into the concert in the first place. Or maybe these folks wanted to get to their cars to avoid a repeat of the arrival experience.
The music was good, but I noticed something. When the Moody Blues sung their signature song, "Nights in White Satin", they omitted the poetic epilogue which includes the phrase, "Senior citizens wish they were young." Yes, the Moody Blues are senior citizens now.
Incidentally, we were transported to and from the festival by shuttle buses. There were long lines to board these buses and it was almost amusing to watch people, including ourselves, struggle to pack into those buses with tables, chairs, picnic baskets and blankets. The comfort level left much to be desired. I may not be returning to Ravinia Park anytime soon.
It wasn't pretty. And blame it on the blues, the Moody Blues. To say that traffic congested in Highland Park, home of the Ravinia festival, would be an understatement. The Ravinia parking lots were filled and it seemed as though the police were just looking for some place to put everybody. And so we inched through the village for an hour or more before being directed to the Highland Park High School which was miles away from Ravinia. We left Elk Grove Village at 5:00 p.m. for an 8:00 p.m. concert. We barely arrived in time.
Ravinia Park is kind of a unique place. It consists of a 3,200 seat "pavilion" where the musical performance can be observed in a traditional theater setting. Everybody else brings tables, chairs, picnic baskets and blankets and settles in on the remaining 36 acres of lawn. An upscale crowd is attracted to this venue. The appearance is reminiscent of Woodstock except that nobody is naked, everybody is clean, and wine and cheese are being consumed instead of LSD and marijuana.
By the time we got to Ravinia, we weren't half a million strong. Or maybe we were. God knows it was packed in there and we looked jealously at little patches of grass that were too small to hold our party of four. And so we walked further and further to the outer reaches, near the perimeter fence, where we laid claim to a picnic table and rejoiced in our good fortune. But once the Moody Blues started to play, we realized why the table was available. There were no speakers in this immediate area. The music could be heard from other more distant speakers, but faintly. The Moody Blues were our dinner music
In some sense the Moody Blues seemed out of place at Ravinia. You see Ravinia is the summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, so classical music tends to be the order of the day. On the other hand the music of the Moody Blues has traditionally been a blend of rock and classical orchestration. But when I walked to the Pavilion area to try and get a look at the band, it seemed that the orchestra was probably on tape.
The Moody Blues are old now. And so was their crowd. Their first set lasted about 45 minutes and then they took a break. They probably needed it. Then they played a second set. And about halfway through the second set people started to leave the festival in droves, like they were trying to beat a 10:00 p.m. curfew. This made no sense to me after having battled to get into the concert in the first place. Or maybe these folks wanted to get to their cars to avoid a repeat of the arrival experience.
The music was good, but I noticed something. When the Moody Blues sung their signature song, "Nights in White Satin", they omitted the poetic epilogue which includes the phrase, "Senior citizens wish they were young." Yes, the Moody Blues are senior citizens now.
Incidentally, we were transported to and from the festival by shuttle buses. There were long lines to board these buses and it was almost amusing to watch people, including ourselves, struggle to pack into those buses with tables, chairs, picnic baskets and blankets. The comfort level left much to be desired. I may not be returning to Ravinia Park anytime soon.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
The Meaning of Life
What is the meaning of life? And will I discover it before I leave this planet? How many people more intelligent than I have been down this path before me? The meaning of life: the world’s greatest unsolved mystery.
And yet some claim to have figured it out. For example, I have heard that the meaning of life lies in procreation and the continuation of the species. But how mundane and uninspiring is that? Is that all there is? I have also heard that the meaning of life can be found by singing Hosannas to Jesus. But that doesn’t make any sense to me either.
Indeed, I have struggled with religion. Yes I believe that “God” exists in some kind of cosmic sense. What I do not accept is an invisible, bearded man in the sky who spoke only to the ancients, who then authored holy and infallible books while simultaneously believing that the world was flat. I do not believe that the world is 6,000 years old. I do not believe that man coexisted with dinosaurs. I believe that it is dangerous to even entertain such nonsense.
What I do believe is that the “theory” of evolution is beyond challenge. Yes, the verdict is now in. Even at life’s tiniest level, bacteria evolve from day to day, placing mankind in a constant struggle to create antibiotics that will keep us one step ahead of disaster.
On the other hand, I do have an instinctive sense that “God” provides divine inspiration. Perhaps mankind’s most moving musical piece is the Ninth Symphony, but it was written by Ludwig Von Beethoven when he was totally deaf. Indeed, anything that we call art seems to have its roots buried in some kind of divine plane.
Perhaps the meaning of life cannot be stated in words. Perhaps the meaning of life must simply be felt in order to be experienced. Perhaps it is revealed in great books that challenge the order of things. Catcher in the Rye, The Grapes of Wrath. Or in great films: Cinema Paradiso, 2001 A Space Odyssey.
But whenever I feel that I am coming close to grasping the meaning of life, it somehow slips away. Perhaps to contemplate the meaning of life, we have to release our minds to a higher, esoteric level and abandon the rules of life that have been ingrained in us since childhood. The ways of the world have been taught to us since we emerged from the womb. But without challenge, they may also mark the prison from which we have to escape.
For example, the ancients thought that the earth was the center of the universe. And why not? And from our position on the ground, it certainly looks that way - except for the seemingly erratic movement of what we now know to be planets. But in the middle ages, planets were just pesky little stars that just wouldn’t stay put. Of course such movement is easily explained by challenging the order of things; that the earth is just another planet revolving around the sun. But once upon a time, that was not something you would want to say in public.
For the past century or so, we have viewed religion and science as being at odds with on another. And guess what? They are. The creation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden now seems much less plausible than the existence of genetic blueprints and DNA. But truth has its own beauty, and so in the end, I suspect it will be scientists rather than theologians who will unlock the mystery of “God.” Someday we may even unlock the mystery of aging and conquer death itself. But I am sixty years old and such a discovery is unlikely to happen before I need it.
No, I will die and presumably meet my maker. Since I’ve lived a fairly good life, I expect to obtain admission to this place called heaven. And once that happens, I have a plan. I’m going to hang around the Pearly Gates and acquire a feel for the lay of the land. Sooner or later St. Peter is going to need to take a break. When that happens, I’m going to swing the gates wide open.
Good news everybody. You’re all getting in.
And yet some claim to have figured it out. For example, I have heard that the meaning of life lies in procreation and the continuation of the species. But how mundane and uninspiring is that? Is that all there is? I have also heard that the meaning of life can be found by singing Hosannas to Jesus. But that doesn’t make any sense to me either.
Indeed, I have struggled with religion. Yes I believe that “God” exists in some kind of cosmic sense. What I do not accept is an invisible, bearded man in the sky who spoke only to the ancients, who then authored holy and infallible books while simultaneously believing that the world was flat. I do not believe that the world is 6,000 years old. I do not believe that man coexisted with dinosaurs. I believe that it is dangerous to even entertain such nonsense.
What I do believe is that the “theory” of evolution is beyond challenge. Yes, the verdict is now in. Even at life’s tiniest level, bacteria evolve from day to day, placing mankind in a constant struggle to create antibiotics that will keep us one step ahead of disaster.
On the other hand, I do have an instinctive sense that “God” provides divine inspiration. Perhaps mankind’s most moving musical piece is the Ninth Symphony, but it was written by Ludwig Von Beethoven when he was totally deaf. Indeed, anything that we call art seems to have its roots buried in some kind of divine plane.
Perhaps the meaning of life cannot be stated in words. Perhaps the meaning of life must simply be felt in order to be experienced. Perhaps it is revealed in great books that challenge the order of things. Catcher in the Rye, The Grapes of Wrath. Or in great films: Cinema Paradiso, 2001 A Space Odyssey.
But whenever I feel that I am coming close to grasping the meaning of life, it somehow slips away. Perhaps to contemplate the meaning of life, we have to release our minds to a higher, esoteric level and abandon the rules of life that have been ingrained in us since childhood. The ways of the world have been taught to us since we emerged from the womb. But without challenge, they may also mark the prison from which we have to escape.
For example, the ancients thought that the earth was the center of the universe. And why not? And from our position on the ground, it certainly looks that way - except for the seemingly erratic movement of what we now know to be planets. But in the middle ages, planets were just pesky little stars that just wouldn’t stay put. Of course such movement is easily explained by challenging the order of things; that the earth is just another planet revolving around the sun. But once upon a time, that was not something you would want to say in public.
For the past century or so, we have viewed religion and science as being at odds with on another. And guess what? They are. The creation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden now seems much less plausible than the existence of genetic blueprints and DNA. But truth has its own beauty, and so in the end, I suspect it will be scientists rather than theologians who will unlock the mystery of “God.” Someday we may even unlock the mystery of aging and conquer death itself. But I am sixty years old and such a discovery is unlikely to happen before I need it.
No, I will die and presumably meet my maker. Since I’ve lived a fairly good life, I expect to obtain admission to this place called heaven. And once that happens, I have a plan. I’m going to hang around the Pearly Gates and acquire a feel for the lay of the land. Sooner or later St. Peter is going to need to take a break. When that happens, I’m going to swing the gates wide open.
Good news everybody. You’re all getting in.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
DINER
There is a certain kind of diner that keeps appearing in the movies.
The layout of the diner is always the same. The diner is long and narrow. It is always on a commercial street and the length of the diner runs parallel with the street. It is invariably marked by a bright, neon sign. In the movies, it is usually raining when a customer enters the diner.
The insider of the diner is separated by an aisle. On one side of the aisle are booths. The booths extend the entire length of the diner and they face the windows. Everybody sitting at a booth has a clear view of the street outside. On the other side of the aisle is a counter. The counter also runs the entire length of the diner. Customers who are flying solo sit on stools and are served by a uniformed waitress on the opposite side of the counter. In the movies, she is always pouring coffee. She also writes the customer's order down on a tablet. She tears the top page off the tablet and puts it on a carousel, where a cook grabs it and fills the order. Later this very same piece of paper serves as a bill or check. Nobody needs a computer in these places and one senses that the IRS doesn't care much about the money coming in or going out. The food is probably good and maybe the IRS agents eat there. They don't want to shut it down.
I am aware of no diners of this type in the Chicagoland area.
The layout of the diner is always the same. The diner is long and narrow. It is always on a commercial street and the length of the diner runs parallel with the street. It is invariably marked by a bright, neon sign. In the movies, it is usually raining when a customer enters the diner.
The insider of the diner is separated by an aisle. On one side of the aisle are booths. The booths extend the entire length of the diner and they face the windows. Everybody sitting at a booth has a clear view of the street outside. On the other side of the aisle is a counter. The counter also runs the entire length of the diner. Customers who are flying solo sit on stools and are served by a uniformed waitress on the opposite side of the counter. In the movies, she is always pouring coffee. She also writes the customer's order down on a tablet. She tears the top page off the tablet and puts it on a carousel, where a cook grabs it and fills the order. Later this very same piece of paper serves as a bill or check. Nobody needs a computer in these places and one senses that the IRS doesn't care much about the money coming in or going out. The food is probably good and maybe the IRS agents eat there. They don't want to shut it down.
I am aware of no diners of this type in the Chicagoland area.
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