Uncommon Common Sense
Thursday July 29th 2010

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A Perspective from the Past

My hus­band has come down with a germ and it’s a pretty bad case. Thank good­ness it’s not the Swine Flu, but in some ways it may be worse because there is no end in sight. Some­time dur­ing the past month he was bit­ten by the Geneal­ogy Bug. My sis­ter caught it first and it is spread­ing to the entire fam­ily. My in-laws are already show­ing seri­ous symptoms.

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A News “Flash” – Literally

 Accord­ing to a July 2, 2009 Reuters news release, an air­line has made a record­ing of  its pas­sen­ger safety brief­ing by film­ing a pilot and cabin crew who are wear­ing only body paint on their oth­er­wise nude bod­ies. Call me a fuddy-duddy, call me a Doubt­ing Thomas, call me a cab, but I’m not sure  it will work, at least not to achieve the ends they say they are seeking.

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My Week that Was

This has been a chal­leng­ing week — one for reflect­ing — and the reflec­tions have been good.  

Almost 19 years ago I was allowed to write a col­umn that began as bits of advice to peo­ple who were hav­ing to deal with the jus­tice system.  As time went on I added a few of my per­sonal views, mix­ing in com­men­tary and humor about life, in gen­eral.  Before I knew it the col­umn had mor­phed into a pot­pourri of  infor­ma­tion and opin­ion.  I always tried to make it mean­ing­ful, based in com­mon sense, and wor­thy of the time it took some­one to read it.  For those who spent a few moments each week, explor­ing my thoughts, I am truly grateful.

Now the venue has changed.  Still, I can’t stop writ­ing columns — at least not yet.  So I will con­tinue to sit at this key­board and try to form thoughts, beliefs and feel­ings into mean­ing­ful words and com­pre­hen­sive sentences.  The blog may even include a jour­nal, of sorts.  With each post I look for­ward to real conversation, via your comments.

To my gra­cious sup­port­ers and faith­ful read­ers I say a sin­cere and hum­ble “thank you.”   I would be remiss if I didn’t add, “God bless you all.”

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Does Emancipation Mean “No Rules”?

Dear Jus­tAd­vice,

Our 18-year-old daugh­ter lives at home and we give her a car and pay for her upkeep. She recently dis­ap­peared for sev­eral days with­out telling us she was leav­ing and we were fran­tic because we had no idea where she was or what had hap­pened to her. It turned out she went away with her boyfriend. We want her to at least let us know where she is, and we do not approve of her being sex­u­ally involved with this boy. She says she is an adult and that it is up to her, not us, how she lives her life. Are we liv­ing in the Dark Ages?

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The Blame Game — In Reverse

I talk a lot about par­ents who don’t give a hoot what their chil­dren are doing, but at the other extreme are the par­ents who can’t imag­ine their chil­dren doing any­thing wrong. They con­sis­tently cover for them, go to their defense or take the blame them­selves, no mat­ter what the evi­dence indi­cates. They should, instead, be hold­ing their chil­dren account­able for their crimes. Yes, they need to stick with them as they go through the process of estab­lish­ing guilt and accept­ing pun­ish­ment, but from enough of a dis­tance that the child is the one pay­ing the price.

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Just a Thought: Greed and the American Dream

iStock_000002036764XSmallWhat, exactly, is greed?  We hear a lot about it these days and I am con­vinced that, in some ways, we are look­ing at it the wrong way ’round.

We now assume that peo­ple who have money, or who own busi­nesses, are just nat­u­rally greedy, par­tic­u­larly if they have “made it.”   But, wait.  Wasn’t that the Amer­i­can dream?  Wasn’t “mak­ing it” the very thing that made peo­ple want to come here?  Has the Amer­i­can Dream become lit­tle more than a hand-out?  If so, who’s pay­ing the bill?

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Parents Should Ask Questions

Dear Pro­ba­tion Officer,

My 14 year old daugh­ter was recently arrested. She says she only admit­ted to the police because she was afraid. She is home now and we’re try­ing to get her life back on track but I’m upset by all of this and we still have to face Court.  I would like to see the charges and ask some ques­tions of my own, espe­cially since she is inno­cent. How can I do that, and what should I be asking?

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Good Casework, or just Dumb Luck?

Dear Pro­ba­tion Officer,

Our son was on pro­ba­tion for a while and we really had our ups and downs with him. The pro­ba­tion offi­cer was very atten­tive, and our son even­tu­ally straight­ened up, but we’re not sure exactly what brought him around. We’ve talked about it a lot and we don’t see where any­body did any­thing mirac­u­lous. Was it just dumb luck? We’d sure like to hear what you would say about that.

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Dealing with a Stepson’s Misbehavior

Dear Pro­ba­tion Officer,

My step­son is becom­ing very dis­obe­di­ent to his mother and me, espe­cially me, and I don’t know what to do.  His father left them when he was still in dia­pers, so he never knew him, but he tells me I’m not really his dad and that I can’t tell him what to do.  I mar­ried his mother about a year ago.  He’s 14 now and we think he needs a firm hand before he gets into seri­ous trou­ble.  Can you give us any advice?

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When Should Teenagers go to Bed During the Summer?

Dear Pro­ba­tion Officer,

I would like to know your opin­ion on bed­time for teenagers. I think 1:00 AM is rea­son­able dur­ing the sum­mer, but they pre­fer to stay up almost most of the night, watch­ing TV and play­ing video games. Con­se­quently, they sleep all day and are usu­ally on the “wrong side of the clock.” This causes prob­lems with meals and other func­tions of the fam­ily. I believe there should be lim­its and that the rules of life are there for the good of every­one. I’m sure the prob­lem is not unique to our family.

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