Same sex marriage is in the news.  I seldom write about marriage because, to be honest, I’m not very good at it. Of course, those who have failed or even some who have never been married may still choose to lecture couples who are enjoying successful relationships.   

Here’s a tell – the loudest, angriest defenders of traditional marriage are the unhappiest people you will ever meet. 

Traditional Marriage.  Biblical Marriage.  Holy.  A man and a woman, and her maid, and another woman (perhaps the sister of the first woman), and her maid, and maybe another woman or two.  You know, MARRIAGE. 

Personally, I am sick of the hypocrisy.  I’m tired and bored with the conversation.  There are two distinctly different, sometimes competing, components to marriage.  One part is spiritual.  The other part of marriage is legal, i.e. property rights, taxes, and responsibility. 

Churches, synagogues, mosques, etc… control and define the spiritual meaning of marriage.  Each religion has the right to decide whether the couple getting married meets the criteria of the faith.  The Catholic Church gets to determine whether the union of a Catholic and a Jew, a Catholic and a Methodist, or even two civilly divorced Catholics should be recognized by the Church.  My friend the Orthodox Rabbi is in no rush to preside at the wedding of a Jewish guy to a Christian girl.  And there are still churches in this country where a mixed race couple might not be welcome. 

But all of those couple may choose to be legally married.  The tax deduction for married couples, the ability to pass along assets to a surviving spouse, or even the right to visit a loved one in the hospital should not be decided by Sharia Law, the Pope, or even a local Rabbi. 

By the way, my friend the Rabbi is adamantly anti-pork.  Never had it.  Never will.  Pork is specifically forbidden in the Bible.  But he doesn’t want to make pork illegal.  He sincerely hopes that his non-Jewish friends enjoy their ham sandwiches.  He is far more concerned about those who would use religion, selectively enforced, as a weapon. 

II

 Is George Zimmerman guilty of second degree murder?  Is he guilty of manslaughter?  I have an opinion.  So do you.  But, just for a moment, let’s jump forward. 

Let’s suppose that the jury decides that Trayvon Martin had George Zimmerman pinned on his back.  And we will even suppose that Trayvon some how noticed George’s gun, the gun in the special concealed weapon holster.  The holster that sat below his waistband and kept the gun “concealed” in the small of his back.  But Trayvon still saw the gun and reached for it.  Yes, we will assume, for a moment, that the jury acquits George Zimmerman of all charges and sets him free. 

What’s next?  George Zimmerman, wannabe cop, licensed to carry a concealed weapon, returns to the neighborhood watch.  How safe do you feel?

This all started a couple of months ago.  A local artist was opening a new show and we were there for support.  I had no intention of buying anything, but one of her pieces was damn near irresistible.  So we bought it.  But it was opening night and the guys running the show swiped my credit card and then placed a little round sticker on the wall next to the picture.  I completely understood.  They wanted to show that her art was selling and hoped that those colored stickers would motivate more people to move from lookers to buyers.  I would get my art when the show ended in four to five weeks. 

We all know the three worst lies.  The first and most common is “the check is in the mail”.  It’s not.  The other two may be a little dated or sexist, so we’ll skip them for the moment.  Besides, I have a new one to add to the list – “I’ve been reaching out to Dave but haven’t heard back”. 

I contacted the artist in mid-June looking for my purchase.  The credit card had been charged the night of the opening.  The picture?  Who knows?  One should never confuse artists with business people.  I understand that.  I also knew that the guys running the show should be managing the delivery process.  Monday was June 24^th, over two months since the show and almost a whole month since it closed.  I contacted the artist again. 

She was shocked.  She had been told that all of the art had been delivered.  This is an important point.  She wasn’t told that there was a problem.  On the contrary, everything was copasetic.  Now she was worried that she had the piece in her studio.  Failing to find it, she contacted the curators. 

Now it may be that this particular gallery opening was below their target market.  Perhaps that would explain their shocking lack of professionalism.  Or it could be that this and any other assignment was more than the two guys could manage.  Either way, this is the exact conversation that took place today via Facebook direct message.  The names have been eliminated to protect the incompetent.  Please don’t waste time trying to guess the names. 

     Artist – Guys! It seems we have a piece we sold at the show to Dave & Sally. Do I have the piece and if so, let me know I can bring it tonite!

     ### 1 – We can run it to you tonight. ### 2 has been reaching out to David but hasn’t heard back. Seems as if you’ll have better luck getting it to him. Thanks!

     Me – ### 1, I can’t imagine how you or ### 2 have attempted to reach out to me. Smoke signals? My office number – 216.292.8700 is unchanged for 15 years. I am listed  in the phone book and easily found on Google, FB, Linked In, etc…

     ### 1 – ### 2 has called and left messages for you since the show closed at the end of May. For some odd reason, they may not have gotten to you or you were unable to respond at the time. That is neither here nor there. We will deliver the piece to the artist to get to you. Thanks.

     Me – My secretary and I were just laughing at the thought of not being able to get a hold of me. Awaiting both my art and your apology!

     ### 1 – It seems you were e-mailed, not called. Either way, we did try to reach you.

     Me to the artist – Please let me know when they get the piece to you. No reason for me to be bothered with any more of this conversation… 

And there you have it, the perfect execution of the stupidest of lies.  Can’t find someone?  In 2013?  We have no privacy.  We are playing hide and seek where everyone, including the federal government, is IT.  And these two bunglers are trying to say that they couldn’t find me.

Actually, they first neglected to tell the artist that they were even looking.  Of course, the truth is that they weren’t looking.  My art, and possibly the purchases of others, may have once been scheduled for delivery, but now was just one more unfinished assignment. 

I know you caught the problems in the exchange.  First they didn’t acknowledge the undelivered piece(s).  Then they said that they had reached out, called, and left messages.  And then, when all else failed, they fell back on the missing email excuse.

I hope to have my art by this weekend.  But when it comes to the two guys that ran the show, I am reminded of one of the other great lies.  Yes, I will respect you in the morning.

 

 

“Welcome to the smoking section”, I said to the woman eyeing the open seat on the park bench next to us.  She smiled, professed to loving the smell of a good cigar, and introduced herself as Joanie. 

Part of our annual trip to the City is a cigar from De La Concha and an hour of intense people watching at the entrance to Central Park a few blocks away.  People watching.  The only person we talk with is whoever I ask to take our annual picture with my Blackberry.  Everything was going according to plan for the first 30 minutes.  Even the light rain added to, not diminished from, our ritual.  No lightening.  No thunder.  The branches of the nearby trees provided a bit of cover. 

Joanie was totally oblivious of the rain.  She was on a mission to talk with as many people as possible.  A displaced New Yorker now living in the northwest, she was visiting the city of her birth to remember her past and to share EVERY moment.  We were scheduled to meet my brother at Barney’s cufflink department; otherwise we might still be on that bench talking with her. 

Within the hour or so that we did talk we learned where and how Joanie met her late, first husband (pilot / Jones Beach), her uber-quiet current spouse (Norwegian scientist), and some of her travel exploits. We heard about childhood friends and ocean-front homes.  There were stories of grandchildren (3) and horses (current a quarter horse).  

And when at some point we failed to be enough of an audience, she also engaged the photographer from South Africa and the two guys from Colorado sitting close by. 

Like everyone who has had the pleasure of meeting Joanie, we immediately became her closest friends and confidants.  It was an awesome responsibility and we accepted gladly knowing in advance that our intense relationship was temporary in nature.  We knew that, but I’m not sure Joanie does. 

Early in our conversation, while talking about her homes, Joanie invited us to come and visit.  I’m absolutely positive that she was serious.  We aren’t booking a flight to Seattle anytime soon.  And though Joanie has my card, I don’t expect an email or a call.  As Van Morrison sang, “If you never hear from him, that just means he didn’t call”.  And it would be a shame to never hear from Joanie.  But I also wouldn’t be shocked if I got a call, five years from now, from a wandering Joanie sitting in a restaurant in downtown Cleveland asking if I would be available for lunch. 

I hope one day to get that call.  And yes, I’ll pick up the tab and listen to all of the stories of her latest adventures.

Memorial Day is the unofficial start of summer here in Northeast Ohio.  June is the unofficial start of art festival season.  Legacy Village in Lyndhurst will be hosting the ex-Beachwood Art Fair tomorrow.  In the coming months we will have the opportunity to see arts and crafts at Cain Park, Boston Mills, and in almost every suburb.  Some of the works on display will be absolutely incredible.  But no matter how incredible the photograph, painting, or even sculpture will be, you are bound to hear someone look at the efforts of a skilled artist and scoff, “What’s the big deal?  I could do that”.  And all you can do is shake your head and hope that the creator of the work doesn’t hear the remark. 

I’m sure we have all done something like that.  We have the silly and totally unfounded notion that we could paint the picture, catch the football, or run the country.  Karaoke is proof that nothing is as easy as it appears.  Sometimes painful proof. 

AOL, the huge internet / communications company, has an online daily community newspaper called The Patch.  There are separate publications for Mayfield Hts, Beachwood, Solon, Lakewood, etc…  Each has its own editor and at least one staff person.  The Patch does a terrific job with breaking news. The design is simple and clean. The publications also include a lot of local bloggers.  Health Insurance Issues With Dave has appeared on the Patch for almost two years.    

AOL decided to update the Patch this week.  The new format would improve the editing functions for bloggers and make the publication easier to read.  That was the plan.  The results were quite different, almost New Coke different.  At one point the entire site was down.  Two days into the change and the site is still not running smoothly.  Hit a button and you may encounter a frozen screen or you might be ejected from the site.  I suspect that this will take a few more days to resolve and by this time next week all functions will be completely restored. 

I bring this up for a reason.  This is AOL, a tech giant, scrambling to update an existing site, an online newspaper.  You know that they completely tested this before it went live.  And you know that there are far more complicated sites.  Yet this roll-out was hardly successful.  This stuff is harder than it looks. 

The Insurance Exchanges are supposed to be live on October 1^st.  This excessively complicated, Rube Goldberg creation is destined for failure.  How you view that failure will say a lot about how you view all of the rest of issues surrounding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).  If you curse the system from the moment of the first crash, you may well be witnessing the results you were hoping for.  But if you understand that something this complicated will probably have difficulty getting off the ground initially, but may still fly in time, then you will allow the Exchanges the opportunity to solve their problems. 

It is just another website, another picture, another song – something else that looks so easy that we could have done this ourselves.

We finally had a nice Sunday.  I try to golf every Sunday morning, but the weather has been cold and rainy.  This past Sunday was beautiful and I was at Gleneagles with “Big Muddy” Amstadt.  The course was in excellent condition and my game quickly returned to normal – moments of acceptable mediocrity surrounded my hours of pure awfulness.  I shot a 54 on the front nine. 

Fifty-four.  I hit the ball fifty-four times.  Fifty-four is a lot of anything.  Take a moment to count to fifty-four.  I’ll wait. 

*   *   *   

In response to the devastating shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary this past December, Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President and CEO of the National Rifle Association (NRA) said that “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun”.  He repeated that claim at the NRA convention recently held in Houston. 

We are asked to ignore the fact that there were armed guards at Columbine High School.  We are supposed to believe that the more guns, the better.   

Mr. LaPierre’s arguments make little sense to me since I’m neither compensated by the gun manufacturers nor planning on leading an insurrection.  So I am left to wondering about the wisdom of arming teachers and what measures the schools would need to take to keep the weapons out of the hands of students, unqualified staff or even thieves. 

But my biggest concern would be the very teachers the NRA wants to militarize.  

The NRA wants more of us to buy guns and ammunition.  Lots and lots of ammunition.  And we should all take a gun safety course so that we won’t accidently kill ourselves with one of our special weapons.  Our teachers might get a little more training.  How much training is enough? 

I don’t think teachers and administrators can be given enough training to be safe with a gun in a school. 

*   *   * 

On March 10^th two Middlefield police officers pulled over a vehicle in what appeared, initially, to be a routine traffic stop.  It was anything but routine.  James Gilkerson didn’t stay in his car.  He didn’t search for his license and registration.  He decided, for reasons we will never know, to kill the police.  He got out of his car and began shooting at the two patrol officers with a semi-automatic AK-47.  The officers’ bullet proof vests were no match for the armor piercing bullets that he was firing. 

The gunman got off thirty-seven shots.  Both officers were injured.  Officer Erin Thomas was hit by several bullets.  This link will take you to the dash-cam video.  It is very graphic.  The gunman’s last words were “Kill me”.  Was this Suicide By Cop?  Again, we will never know. 

The Middlefield police were caught off guard, but they are professionals and their training kicked in.  Outgunned and injured, the officers shot back and eventually got their man. 

These weren’t two casually trained history teachers.  These were two professional police officers.  It only took them Fifty-Four shots. 

It is a miracle that neither the gunman nor the police officers accidentally killed anyone else. 

Would teachers and secretaries do better under extreme pressure?  I don’t think so.  I think more guns equals more risk equals more accidental victims.  According to Cleveland.com the Middlefield gunman had “eight magazines loaded with 40 rounds each of ammunition for the AK-47, a .22 caliber rifle and a magazine of ammunition for it, more than five pounds of gunpowder and empty shells”. He was well aware that the police officers, the ultimate good guys, had guns.  That did not deter him.  When do we ask why an American citizen needs access to that much firepower?  And is it really a good idea?  

I think that the two Middlefield police officers were amazingly brave and performed well under pressure.  I would never pretend that I could do their job.  But fifty-four is a lousy score whether you are discussing nine holes of golf or trying to take out one gunman.  Giving more people golf clubs would only make a slow game slower.  Giving more people guns will only make all of us less safe.

 

DAVE 

 

Good-bye – alteration of G-d be with you.  First Known Use: circa 1580

Merriam-Webster 

Tom Lehrer knew a good obituary when he saw one.  In 1965 he sung about Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel (1879-1964) a woman who had been romantically involved with the best and brightest of 20^th Century central Europe.  She married three of these successful men.  Her obituary detailed all of this and Lehrer gave us Alma: 

Alma, tell us

All modern women are jealous.

You should have a statue in bronze

For bagging Gustav and Walter and Franz.  

As noted last week, I read the obituaries every day as part of my job.  Most obits are predictable and of little interest to anyone but the deceased’s friends and family.  The words beloved, dearest, and devoted are liberally sprinkled throughout these 50 – 75 word essays. 

This is it.  This is the family’s last chance to tell the world how great their dad was, how much they loved their mother.  Obituaries are optional.  The newspaper publishes a death notice, the names of everyone who has died in the paper’s service area.  It is up to the friends and/or family whether they choose to memorialize the recently departed. 

That is how it usually works.  Every once in awhile a little truth sneaks in.  And sometimes, sometimes the family uses the obituary page as a vehicle to set the record straight or to get the last word.  The following obituary appeared recently.  I don’t know the family and never met the deceased.  I have redacted the names, even though this was published in the Plain Dealer, for reasons that will soon be apparent.  This is how the family chose to spend $250. 

XXXXXX XXXXX XXXXX, from Parma, OH, died on April 19. He was a better grandpa than he was a dad, but he had some decent moments with his kids that involved nature walks, Geauga Lake, and watching campy horror films. He enjoyed working at the local deli, with his friend Al, and he made really good sandwiches. He put a lot of thought into it and always put the sliced tomatoes separate so they didn’t make the bread all wet and soggy. He could cook anything on the grill, and he could grow anything in the garden. He liked animals, especially birds, as well as flowers, trees, and well-tended gardens. He knew a lot about these things, as well as astronomy and metallurgy. He also enjoyed reading National Geographic and the Smithsonian. He hated rap music, people who took too long to make left turns, and the invention of the breathalyzer. He loved his parents, Jack and Dorothy XXXXX and enjoyed his grandchildren. He is survived by his mother, brothers, Gary and Keith XXXXX, and children, Heather, Meggin, Aaron and Hilary. In spite of everything, he will be missed, especially by his grandchildren, xxxxxx, xxxxx and xxxxx.

He is dead.  It is now up to each of us to keep those sliced tomatoes separate and the rye bread dry.  And the family has had their say. 

The one thing they didn’t say was “Good-bye”.

DAVE

I immediately recognized his face.  It’s not that I knew him well.  I didn’t.  In fact, I don’t think that Martin (name changed for obvious reasons) and I had ever had a meaningful conversation.  But we had both belonged to an organization and I recognized his face, if not his name, the moment I saw his picture in the newspaper.  In the obituaries.  Martin died last week.  And Martin was about five years younger than me. 

I read the obituaries daily.  This is part of my job.  Should one of my clients die, I will have a chance to get the claim’s process started even before they call.  Reading the obits also allows me to react to the deaths of the relatives of my clients.  Sometimes that reaction is a handwritten note.  Sometimes it is a donation to charity or a Shiva call.  Regardless, reading the obits allows me to be a better friend and a better agent.  The result of my diligence was learning of Martin’s passing last week. 

This post won’t serve to memorialize Martin.  Hell, I’m not even revealing his real name and I know that most of my readers never met him.  No, I want to share with you what happened, or didn’t happen, after he died. 

Remember, I really didn’t know Martin.  I didn’t know his company name and only had an educated guess as to what he did.  Since Martin had a common name, Google wasn’t necessarily the easiest way to confirm that I had the right guy.  So I went to the website of the organization where I thought that I had met him.  If I was correct, the website would note the passing of an active member. 

Nothing.  There was nothing on the organization’s website about Martin’s death.  There was a News section right on the Home Page.  And as I later learned, Martin’s banner ad was still there, big and bold, helping to fund an organization that couldn’t be bothered to note his passing.  I searched the site and found a mention of his name.  Martin was a Doer, a guy who had given of his time too.  I was able to confirm the name of his business and was shocked at how many times either he or the business appeared on this organization’s website.  Shocked because it became apparent that getting money and effort from Martin had been important to the people who ran the organization, but neither the memory of Martin, nor the needs of his family, was worth noting. 

Today is Sunday, almost a week since Martin died.  Martin’s banner ads are still running on the organization’s website.  But there is no mention of Martin’s death.  If anything, perhaps we should commend the organization.  The leaders of the organization have shown great honesty.  They don’t really give a damn about their members and they aren’t going to lie or fake that they do.  

I sent a condolence card to Martin’s family. It was my way of showing respect and saying good-bye. And while I’m thinking about good-byes, it may be time to wave good-bye to this and other organizations that want time and money but really don’t care what happens to you.  Even when you die. 

Is there a DNR order?  Is there a hospice for a newspaper?  After suffering from years of benign neglect, the (formerly Cleveland) Plain Dealer is patiently waiting to die.

The real changes kick in later this summer.  In an effort to make its death more painful, Advance Publications, the absentee owner of the Plain Dealer, has decided to continue to print the paper daily.  They just won’t deliver it four out of seven days.  Three days a week the paper will be at your door.  The rest of the time it will be hide and seek.  Three days a week your ads will be seen.  Four days a week the paper will shrink to the size of a seventh grader’s book report.  

You might think that this would be enough.  You might think that making the paper harder to access is the business equivalent of a pillow held firmly to your sleeping face.  Advance Publications isn’t taking any chances.  If relevance is the Plain Dealer’s challenge, terminating fifty-three people from the newsroom this summer only hastens the paper’s demise. 

Newspapers can not be duplicated online.  There are wonderful, successful newspapers.  There are wonderful online publications.  They are not one in the same.  I read the daily paper of wherever I am everyday.  Most days that is Cleveland and the Plain Dealer.  But I travel for both business and pleasure and I have the opportunity of reading ten to twelve different papers each year.  There is no greater window to a community than its daily paper.  I also get the New York Times delivered to my email everyday.  Great national and international news, but as a connection to the City, it might as well be the English version of LeMonde.   

Connection.  Newspapers, tangible, deliverable, old fashioned newspapers, provide a clearer picture of the city.  This truth was brought home to me yesterday. 

I was sorting the Sunday Plain Dealer.  I scanned the front page.  No mention of Korea or bombs.  Good.  I then grabbed the Metro section for the obituaries and the Forum section.  I normally hunt for the comics and the Business section, too, before I start to read.  While looking for the Business section I saw the front page of the employment portion of the classifieds.  There, big and bold, was a picture of my client Randy DeMuesy and an article about his profession, copywriting. 

I don’t read the want ads.  But I got to read an interesting article about someone I know.  In fact, this isn’t the first time one of my clients has been featured in this space.  I’ve even read Terri Mrosko’s pieces about people I don’t know.  She’s a good writer and these are interesting columns. 

Bump into that online.  You can’t.  Go to Cleveland.com and yes, if you knew that there was an article about Randy, you might find it.  But there aren’t any pleasant surprises.  You search for specific things online.  You bump into nothing. 

Getting your information online is much like watching cable news and expecting to get the whole story.  The broadcast channels are forced to attempt balanced reporting.  Sometimes they succeed.  Sometimes they fail.  Balance isn’t even a goal on most cable outlets.  If I lean politically in a certain direction I can tune into FOX.  They will tell me what I already suspect and confirm what I think is true.  If I lean in the other direction, MSNBC is waiting for me.  No surprises.  The familiar guests are outraged on cue.  The conclusions are perfectly choreographed.   

The Plain Dealer is not G-d’s gift to journalism, but it is more than adequate and there are moments of greatness.  The writing is consistently good, though we have lost some of their best due to budgets and politics.  Page 2 of yesterday’s paper had Regina Brett utilizing all of her skills to justify this new change.  I wonder when she drew the short straw that got her this assignment.  On the same page was Grant Segall’s much more interesting interview of Lisa Nielson, a teacher in Case Western Reserve’s SAGE’s program.  I would link the interview for you but as is so often the case with Cleveland.com, it is lost in their system! 

I would never have seen that Nielson interview online.  Or Randy’s.  Or any of the other articles that make the Plain Dealer worth reading.  And it is worth reading, or visiting, before it dies.

Our winter vacation is an escape from reality.  Once a year we leave the grey and gloom of February in Cleveland for the sun and light of the Caribbean.  It is only a week.  There is a definite beginning, middle, and end.  But during that week there is permanent summer, frothy cocktails, and all the SPF 50 I can get my hands on.  Sally is oiled up and laying on the beach.  I read, play volleyball (water or beach), and hide in the shade.  And when it ends all too soon, we pack up and fly back to March and the hope that spring will be here soon. 

This year’s trip was to Mexico.  We stayed at a lovely resort in the Riviera Maya region just north of Playa del Carmen.  It is a wondrous area of incredible Mayan ruins, history, and natural beauty.  It is also a land of manufactured glamour, chain resorts, and cheap souvenirs.  You could spend all of your time on one of the resorts with a cold drink, a hot partner, and never know why that statue in the waterfall by the Japanese restaurant looks a lot like a jaguar.  And snakes!  What’s with the serpents? 

I was determined that we would experience the proper mix of fake and real this year.  Our home base would be Ocean Maya Royale, an adult only medium sized resort that felt, to me, more like Mexico than many of the other chains.  We were rewarded with a terrific beach, good service, and excellent food.  It was a fun place and I’m sure that we will return.  

The resort part was easy.  There are plenty of places to get a nice beach, adequate service, and acceptable food.  In fact, that pretty much describes just about any place at Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic.  My goal was to leave the resort and visit the real world.  That is why we chose Mexico and, in particular, the Riviera Maya region.  I wanted to take Sally to Chichen Itza and to snorkel in a cenote, an underground cavern. 

I visited Tulum in the late 1990’s.  The tour guides gave us much the same presentation then as the one we heard last week.  We were supposed to be awed by the Mayan’s advanced society and their grasp of mathematics.  The buildings are amazing, the pillars are aligned just so. 

But I found Chichen Itza unsettling.  Sure the tour guides oversell their ancestors’ ingenuity.  Some of the formulas and explanations seem to be flexible.  When I visited the Forbidden City my Chinese tour guide explained the fixation with the number 9 as nothing more than that Nine is a Royal number.  My Mayan guide tied the 9 tiers of the main tower of Chichen Itza as a reflection of the 9 planets, an explanation that only worked during the @100 years that Pluto was accepted as a planet.  

Everything that had an explainable symmetry was acknowledged.  What was asymmetrical was ignored.  I could ignore the hordes of locals hawking trinkets.  I could not get past the unanswered questions in front of me. 

Of course, this isn’t entirely the Mayan’s fault.  The Spanish and the Catholic Church destroyed much of the written documentation and artifacts of their culture. But I kept looking at the reliefs on the walls.  

The story I saw was of a culture that had peaked.  No one knows the exact cause of the demise of the Mayan society.  I am certainly no expert.  But I saw immense buildings built to honor their gods and to serve their community.  This took time, talent, and organization.  But I wonder if once they got there, if once they got the buildings done, if they, as a society, stopped growing.  The carvings show bloodletting rituals and human sacrifice.  They may have died as a society, but it appears that they first became a culture of Death.  The sport became more violent, and perhaps, the gods became less easily satisfied.  

I walked the plane looking for anything that celebrated life.  I couldn’t find it.  There were statues of the progression man hoped to make from jaguar to eagle to serpent, but if you look closely at the pictures you will see who truly rules these buildings, the iguanas.  

I left the plane and found life, a magnificent banyan tree. 

We spent another day in the water.  We snorkeled in three locations, a cenote, a giant sinkhole of fresh water, and an inlet of fresh water that eventually went out to the sea.  In a one mile swim we went from fresh water to a mix to all salt water.  This was one of our best snorkeling adventures. 

I went to Mexico to get away, to see sun, and to see the real and the fake.  But the real doesn’t have to be wonderful and the fake doesn’t have to be bad.  Mexico let us experience a full range of both.

Can you be cornered at a round table?  Clearly the 62 year old woman who was glaring at me through her tears, her hurt, and her anger felt cornered.  She turned to her husband – three weeks from turning 65, two weeks from Medicare – and asked, “Is this working for you?”  “Yes”, he replied.  “I’m learning something”.  That really got to her. 

            I’ll wait in the car, Harry.

            Sit down Rachel.  He’s trying to help us.

            But I’ve done three months of research.  We already know what we need to do.

            No, we need to ask him more questions. 

Clutching some of the booklets and brochures she had brought to my office, she returned to her seat.  She only threatened to wait in the car one more time over the next 90 minutes.  Through her outbursts and his more restrained rage I learned about their long history of victimization.  The insurance companies had screwed them!  The hospitals had ripped them off!  The details were fuzzy and contradictory, but their emotions were red hot. 

Harry and Rachel (not their real names) had contacted me and had asked for an appointment.  I didn’t want Rachel to wait in the car.  I wanted them both to leave.  But her behavior was so erratic and unpleasant that I had to wonder if her outbursts were medically related.  The smartest thing I could do was to try to calm them down, listen to their bitter litany of complaints, and ease them out of my office.       

We have all had our share of victories and defeats, allies and adversaries.  In a perfect world we learn from our mistakes, create more friends than enemies, and spend our lives moving forward instead of reliving our past.  There are, however, some people who obsess about every time that they have ever been wronged. 

If you believe the armchair shrinks, ex-FBI profilers, and the spokesmen for the various law enforcement groups, Christopher Dorner collected grudges.  And when his head ran out of room to store them all, he unleashed a revenge based assault on the system that he felt had failed him.  Four people have died, countless traumatized, and a fortune was spent to keep others from being harmed and to bring him to justice.  Was he returned to the courts to face a jury of his peers?  No.  He died alone, in a cabin that was on fire and under siege, possibly with a bullet from his own gun. 

Could we have prevented Christopher Dorner and, more importantly, future Christopher Dorners from losing control and becoming a danger to themselves and others?  Probably not.   

Christopher Dorner wasn’t just another loser with a gun.  Dorner graduated from Southern Utah University with a degree in political science.  He was an officer, an ensign, in the Navy and served in Iraq.  While not on active duty he also joined the Los Angeles Police Department.  The Navy had evaluated him.  The LAPD had evaluated him. Every step along the way there were people authorized to say, “No, this guy might abuse his position”.  That wasn’t done. 

If the U.S. Navy and the LAPD couldn’t see this coming, didn’t know that they were arming and training a future killer, how can we believe that we can prevent the future slaughter of innocents?  We can’t. 

The first two victims were truly innocents.  On February 3^rd Monica Quan and Keith Lawrence were executed while sitting in a car in a parking lot.  Quan was the daughter of Randall Quan, the LAPD officer who had unsuccessfully represented Dorner during his termination appeal.  Lawrence was Ms. Quan’s fiancé. 

Christopher Dorner wrote that Quan had failed him.  The price of failure was Quan’s daughter. 

So we are left with four dead and three seriously injured.  In a case of mistaken identity, two of the injured were people shot by the police during the Dorner manhunt.  But the biggest toll, the biggest cost for the rest of us, has been that once again we have been reminded that there are people amongst us who can not process defeat.  And as their losses mount and their sense of entitlement increases, their anger and hurt take over. 

And the human animal, armed, dangerous, and unbound by social restraints, is truly scary when cornered.