Spring has sprung and a young man’s fancy or whatever. Everyone is working on their yards and airing out their basements and eaves. We all would love to be out playing golf. Soccer games seem to happen at the most inopportune times. Things could be worse. And of course everyone has their dreaded “To Do” list. Please don’t tell me you really like it but we know it is just something you have to do to keep ahead of the weeds. If you don’t it builds up from year to year and sooner or later you are overwhelmed. Hmmm.

Well gang, the boys and girls in DC are back from one of their 14 or so recesses that occur throughout the year. They will tell you that have to get home to take care of business in the state. You know, press the flesh. In some quarters that has taken on a whole new meaning lately. Bear with me for a moment but if they take their marching orders from special interests why do they have to go back to the old sod so often?

If my math is correct we have about five months until elections. 150 days. About 3600 hours. By my way of thinking that should be taken up by the people’s business. I know they are short on attention, gumption and critical thinking so I have taken the liberty to make up a list for our revered pols. I hope you will let me know if I hit the right buttons.I am sure you could add your own. To make it real simple I have prioritized them to make it a no brainer. Consider who we are working with.

Let me confuse the issue even more by saying I don’t care what they decide. Just do something. The infuriating part about the Keystone Pipeline is that Barry won’t say yeah or nay. I have a severe bout of nausea when Big John or Life of the Party Harry won’t bring things to the floor for the vote. Orrin Hatch said there just wasn’t an appetite for tax reform right now. Are you friggin’ kidding me?

Immigration…this is at the top of the list for me simply because we have been hashing this over for at least the last ten to twenty years. We have proposed, studied, analyzed to death. You do one of two things. Either you throw everyone out or you make a sane and cogent way for them to stay here. The bipartisan bill makes sense but if it doesn’t, line up the busses. Just do it.

Entitlement Reform…We have to raise the retirement age to 67 and maybe higher. There is a proposal to do that over 30 years but AARP is railing against it. You have to raise the maximum salary to pay in from the current $117,000 to $200,000. You have to means test Social Security as well as Medicare. Guess I just lost a lot of my readership. The whole thing is on death watch. If you don’t want it then euthanize it and put it out of its misery.

Infrastructure…You have to be blind to not know this is critical. Roads, bridges, airports, utilities of all sorts from water to power to sewer need rehab or total rebuilding. The first piece via the Highway Fund is to raise the gas tax. It hasn’t been raised since 1992. The fund runs out of money this summer. I think we should make them all hold their sessions on the worst bridge in the country and then pray for rain.

Tax Reform…Simpson Bowles laid out a blueprint for action almost four years ago. No one even looked at it or considered it. Nada. Zilch. It would throw out carried interest, corporate welfare and bring some sanity to our tax code. The brass have been looking at this for years and say it is too big to tackle…at this time. When the hell is the right time?

Just these four items. These aren’t nice to do things. They are four programs that are essential to our operating as a sound and thinking entity. Sure it is going to hurt in spots. Yes, you are going to ruffle feathers. But TTG it’s an election year. Precisely. You should know where they stand at this very moment. Not pandering and sidestepping but what side of the fence are they lined up on.

We speak of human capital. Think of the hours of committee meetings and BS that take place on the Hill 24/7. Think of the duplication of effort. That is why I keep this list small, simple and to the point. Can you in any way fathom how much negative energy has gone into all these deliberations if they can even be called that?

Let’s call it our “Final Four” instead of a “TO DO” list. That should make it more appealing. The reason I chose “Final” is because this should be the test you are graded on. No letter grades. Pass or fail. I hope we have someone who reads my musings who can get some news wonk wound up on it. I would love to see a growing tide of disenchantment from the Fourth Estate. Liberal or Conservative? Who cares? Let’s show these clowns we can get something done. Maybe they will get the message.

As Always
Ted The Great

Factoids:
There are approximately 11 million illegal immigrants in the US. 75-80% are from Mexico and Latin America. The most are in California, Texas and Florida with the total of those three states alone coming to 5.5 million.

There are 21 standing committees in the House and 19 in the Senate. All told there are over 200 committees and subcommittees. These are fiefdoms that can lock up a lot of good ideas “in committee”. If they get through, the Speaker of the House or the Majority Leader in the Senate has the sole discretion to send it to the floor or not. Creativity is a dirty word. They will tell you it is part of the deliberative process.

Simpson Bowles issued their report in November 2010. Paul Krugman, Paul Ryan and Grover Norquist are opponents. With that range of negative opinions it has to be good.

The federal gas tax is 18.4 cents per gallon. It was last changed in 1992. The price of a gallon of gas at that time was $1.13.

Some days you are the windshield. Some days you are the bug. Right now I am in command. I am performing a very scientific study of life of mosquitoes as we traverse these United States. The grill of this little bottle rocket hurtling along at between 80-90 miles per hour has become the final resting place of some of Florida’s finest. I have discovered that these bad boys don’t get up until at least 10:30 AM. We started out early this morning and the windshield was clean of red and green splatter on our first stop. By the way do you know the last thing going through the brain of one of these critters when they kiss the glass at top speed? Their ASSHOLE of course. Mea Culpa, I couldn’t resist But I digress.

Now Kathy once again is being nominated for the Congressional Medal of Honor having been cooped up with yours truly for twenty some odd hours. I saw her looking up Subaru accessories. What are you checking for sweetie? “Cargo nets”, her reply. What for? “You,” she snapped. Actually I have said very little…deep in thought. We listen to CNN on occasion but most newscasts are the same, talking about the Malaysian Airlines debacle or now the Korean Ferry sinking. Not sure how many times you can go over this stuff and who would advertise?

I have been following the drama in Crimea, especially the annexation. Looking at the US, I wonder who would be the first to go and just as fascinating who would take them. If we use Putin’s rationale of language or culture alone then the most obvious choice is Southern, California, Arizona, New Mexico and parts of Texas being sucked up by Mexico. Can you imaging Sheriff Joe Arpaio becoming a Federale`? Priceless! Now there is also a case to made for New Yorkers or Bostonians speaking a different dialect. The South? I went into a gas station north of Jacksonville and I swore I was in a different country. I still can’t figure out what rural farmer in Tennessee has in common with a fat cat in Laguna Beach? What a country.

On Easter Sunday they played up the Pope’s activities. Washing feet. Telling people to be kind to the poor. All men and I think he meant women are created equal. Making a case against materialism. What the hell is wrong with this guy? Doesn’t he understand capitalism and the global economy? We are in a new paradigm. Every human being for themselves. It’s the wave of the future and oh by the way we are getting so smart in economics and science we don’t need God. sort of. For the moment we might need him in times of danger or tragedy but don’t worry we are working on that too.

Speaking of religion, the people in the South (Bible Belt) are very religious and are not afraid of showing it. An old couple in an “82 Buick had an actual wooden cross in their rear window of their Le Sabre. . Many towns of small populations have an inordinate number of church steeples. Several farms have signs supporting adoption over abortion. Maybe their nurturing of life in both animals and crops gives them a little different perspective.

There is just one wrinkle. As you travel the byways of Dixie there are huge billboards noting the location several kilometers ahead of porn shops or strip joints. I kid you not. Fantasy Island, Passions and The Lion’s Den Adult Center are open 24/7 and couples are welcome. Kathy’s sense of humor would not even let us go through the drive thru.

All kidding aside I am in a bit of a dilemma. Playing golf and lying on the beach only gets you so far. I celebrated my 69th a couple of weeks ago and I still have some gas in the tank. I have this crazy notion that I want to do more with my life. Actually I want to do more for the world you and I live in. I am not sure how that should shake out. I think it will require some soul searching but more important information gathering.

I read about a fellow named Robert Woodson and he really intrigues me. He is a black conservative. Yes, they do exist. He thinks we have this thing on poverty all wrong. We keep throwing money at it on a national and state level. By the time it seeps down into the needy the various echelons have taken their cut leaving a lot less than half a loaf. He goes on to expound that we treat symptoms and not the problem itself. Only 30% of the impoverished have a solid home. He wants to find out how that minority does it and then tailor programs to success rather than going on blindly with band aids. Very Cool.
I suppose I am naive but I am going to spend time trying to understand this in good old Denver,CO. There has to be a Woodson type guy and I hope to find him. Maybe there is one near you. This may be dead end or a whole new avenue for me? Nothing ventured. As The pavement flies by this is where Ted’s Head is going. Thanks for tagging along and bearing with me. I promise I will report back…..and yes clean up my act.

As always
Ted The Great

Factoids:
I was passed on more than one occasion while cruising at 84 in a 75 mile zone by state troopers of varying states and jurisdictions. He or she didn’t stop me. In Missouri this year there have been 184 traffic deaths to date. 64% of the victims were not wearing seat belts.

People who bitch about things rarely have their own solutions. For instance what would YOU do in Ukraine, about Immigration or Entitlements? I mean really what is your answer.

There are an incredible number of Naval stations in Florida, Air Force Bases in Georgia and Tennessee and Army bases in Kansas. Wish I could tell you why.

The majority of cars in the left lane doing under the speed limit are Buicks driven by octaganerians or vans and more specifically Dodge Caravans or Chrysler Town and Countries driven by mothers with large families. In third place are people on cell phones who truly are a menace.

This being April 15,2014 and not wanting to think about that other constancy of death, I have decided to challenge my brain and try to understand where the money goes. Notice I say “goes” because no one ever worries about where we are going to get the gelt to pay for all this. Don’t want to screw up a good story with details but I have to.

The Wall Street Journal had an excellent table presented last week that seemed to hit home. It broke down where every bit of where our tax dollars go based on $100 expended. We run through $27.70 on defense and veterans, $23.39 on Social Security, and $22.23 on healthcare in the form of Medicare, Medicaid and others. That’s $73.22 before we even get rolling. Let’s assume we can’t touch any of this and that leaves us with $26.78 to spare. A king’s ransom to be sure.

Getting out my old fashioned straight razor and working the strop I can’t wait to dive in. Let’s completely cut out food stamps($2.39) housing ($1.35) and education ($1.32) for $5.06. That is not scaling back but eliminating entirely. There is blood everywhere by decapitating foreign aid ($.97) and agriculture subsidies ($.85). That’s a grand total of $6.38 for all of the above. I am more bloodied than a coroner at a train wreck but I have this sinking feeling I can’t get below the dermis before I hit muscle.

We have got to be able to get some other pound of flesh. Aha! Let’s try the Department of Transportation. They come in at $2.65 of our national C Note. The budget for 2014 hovers around $91 billion. Being quick of wit and fleet of mind I wander over to the website. Do this at your own risk. The first several paragraphs describe platitudes and dream shots which should not be surprising except when they say they are “creating ladders of opportunity for all Americans.” Then it hits me all at once why we have runaway government and ever increasing deficits.

DOT covers the gamut from highways to rail to seaports to airports to public transit to pipelines to of course the St. Lawrence Seaway. They spend $2.45 billion on highway safety alone. They have a congestion mitigation and air quality program. They spend $320 million on metropolitan transit planning. JUST PLANNING! They spend $1.2 billion on Federal lands and tribal transportation. This agency which accounts for about 2.5% of the national budget has their mitts in every conceivable aspect of government. As I go through every item I have this eerie feeling of looking over my shoulder to see the EPA, the Department of Labor and Commerce coming in the back door or over the transom to get their little piece of the action…..and with a totally separate budget.

Now kids I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer but I see how this all happens. The future is not in plastics Mrs. Robinson but fiefdoms. There is the lifetime bureaucrat who gets assigned this new department. He or she gets staff, office space and support. They are the the reigning force (MFWIC), which of course translates to power. Now they are funded and overseen by some committee in Congress which has chairperson, staff and jurisdiction. But that in and of itself can be confusing so we have lots of these overlapping one another in the unending quest of turf and importance…..and power. And power brings the tithings of industry through lobbyists and you now see why this is basically unfixable short of a well placed nuclear warhead.

Mind you I did not take on the DOD or Health and Human Services although right now with the departure of Mrs. Sabelius the time might be right. There is not enough scotch in northern Florida for me to attempt that perilous journey. It boggles my mind and at the same time really pisses me off that we cannot stop this runaway train. Please don’t tell me it’s Obama. This little show has been running for 50 years and every one is complicit.

A close friend of mine sent me some research he has been doing for a reunion he is running. It looks at all the legislation and some breathtaking cultural changes we have made as country in the last half century. Civil Rights, Medicare, Medicaid, War on Poverty, advances in medicine, the fall of Russia, the emergence of China, the Internet, nuclear proliferation et alia. These are earthshaking and some are deemed failures but they have all been crammed into a relatively short period of time.

When this happens so fast we rarely sit back and take stock. We don’t clean house and empty the closets of worn out ideas or unused tools. We somehow want to plunge forward without understanding the implications of all this. We could never have envisioned the scope and length of Medicare benefits way back when. Equal pay and equal rights may have set the stage for the breakdown of marriage and the traditional family. Who would have thunk?.

For the past fifteen years the budgetary process has gotten completely out of whack. In many ways it reflects our personality as a country. Instant gratification, brash and arrogant, eat drink and be merry, I want mine. Pick your poison or make your own choice. Either way like any good drunk we have to look in the mirror and say we have a problem. Tax Day is a sobering bit of reality. Maybe this should be a good starting point.

As always
Ted The Great

Factoids:
The first income tax was levied during the Civil War. Imagine that. George W countered that theory by waging war on two fronts and not only did not raise taxes but cut them. But then again the oil revenues were going to pay for the war in Iraq and the budget would be balanced by 2015. What was I thinking?

There re over 500 separate tax forms that can be used. That probably is the reason we have over 1.2 tax preparers in this country. Think of that. We have as many in the tax army as we have in all of our armed forces. About 65% of the country has their taxes prepared by someone else. We spend well over $600 billion per year on avoiding taxes. Do you really think these dudes want it simplified?

The highest tax rate ever was during WWII when it ranged from 23-91%. It is a little bizarre that we celebrate a “refund” because it actually represents the fact we paid too much in the first place.

Sorry I am a little late this week. I had to go to temple. No, I am not converting to Judaism. Mormon doesn’t quite fit the bill either although this house of prayer could be Latter Day or Present Day Saints. You know by now my antipathy towards pomp and circumstance when it comes to worship. This cathedral is actually quite simplistic and relies on natural beauty rather than steel, granite and gold. It is the Augusta National Golf Course.

For you who do not follow golf it is the site of the annual meeting of the clan and it is called the Masters. One of the original founders,Bobby Jones, actually did not want to call it that. He considered it too haughty. Therein creates the duality of a place that is on one end of the sector patrician and on the other where people of all shapes sizes and color can spend a day in the pines and azaleas of rural Georgia.

Incredibly you are struck by the charm and warmth of the place before you leave your car. There are parking lots that are paved in grass and are on gentle hills. You walk towards the gates and you begin to notice there is nothing out of place. As in everything the lines of people merge courteously through stiles that are civil and welcoming. Everywhere, staff from security to ticket takers to guides are greeting you with an ever present smile and enthusiasm towards their place of work. “Good Morning”. “Welcome to the Masters.” “Have a wonderful day at the Masters.” “Thank you for coming.” A large portion are African American and they are the most sincere. They really love this place and what they do. Wow!

They have thought of every nuance and piece of a very complex operation. The number of staff is ginormous. They are everywhere making sure there is a not a wayward wrapper, blade of grass or unruly patron out of place. But they do it without any fanfare or ado. You pay $1.50 for an egg salad sandwich and $1 for a soda. Nothing on the menu is over $3.50. Not so in the gift shop where people are wanting anything that bears the familiar logo but who’s counting?

You are struck by the gentility of everyone as no one speaks above a conversational tone. Crass and demanding go someplace else. The main clubhouse is actually quite demure. You can’t see the innards but you know it is in keeping with the rest of the place. The only mark of royalty is the coveted green blazer but they don’t flaunt their 1 or 2% or whatever. They just want to put on the best show imaginable and they succeed.

We are there for a practice round and there are people everywhere. You get the feeling they are not here for the celebrities but just to walk the holes and suck in the atmosphere which is exactly what we did. You see a myriad of sight lines and around each bend was the picture that you had to take just to replicate what you had seen on TV so many times. Only for once it was so much better.

I won’t bore you with hole by hole replays. Kathy and I left not whooping it up but with a sense we had spent four or five hours in a very special place in so many different ways. Time to just savor.

On the ride back to Jacksonville we passed farms and rural Georgia at its best and worst. We had spent the previous night in Statesboro to ensure an early entrance and went to a local sports bar called Loco’s. Appropriate eh? The young bartender was named Dennis and had lived there all his life. He came over to greet us and told of his town and his pride in this place he called home. He said please come back and stay a while and he meant it.

As the miles passed and we came down to the lowlands of the coast I couldn’t help but dwell on how diverse this country is. We have been so many places over the last couple of years it is truly hard to make sense of it and at the same time that is our strength. I am going to write more on this some time soon but right now I am going to keep this short and sweet…neat but not gaudy.

As always
Ted The Great.

Factoids;
There are around 300 members of Augusta. You don’t apply but are invited. It is not all that expensive but you can lose your green blazer in a heartbeat. The annual bill comes in April. If you don’t get it then you are adios.

You cannot use your membership in Augusta for demanding any special treatment. There was a fellow who went to St Andrews and tried to play on a day in which there were no available tee times. He stated he was a member of Augusta. Still no luck. Word got back and he quickly became a former member of the most exclusive club in America.

I think we ought to have the people running this tournament take over major portions of our government. Let’s see…efficient, courteous, profitable. It just might work.

Vladamyr Putin is flexing his muscles. Thank God he didn’t take his shirt off for this gymnastic episode. He is former KGB and roams the halls of the Kremlin at night bewailing the fall of the USSR from its pedestal alongside the US of A. as partners in global dominance. His philosophical basis goes back to 19th century authors of Russian “exceptionalism”. I think the last time we heard that was in the 1930’s when a wallpaperer by the the name of Hitler was singing out of the same hymnal. Some call him brutal. Some call him maniacal. I call him a sign of the times.

A couple of years ago there was a lone patriot who self immolated in the middle of a square in beautiful downtown Tunis. What was to follow shook the Mideast and all the petty tyrants to the core. One after another the mighty have fallen like one of those cray domino mazes that keep going and going after just one toppled to get the ball rolling. You could not have predicted the “Arab Spring” and it just so happened all the billions we have spent on the CIA and NSA could not have forewarned us about the events of the day.

Think of all the chaos that was wrought after 9/11. A couple of hundred Al Quaeda have caused billions of people to rethink their whole manner of being. We dutifully shed our shoes in seemingly endless lines at airports and then are searched, frisked and x-rayed until our innermost secrets are held out for scrutiny. Whole industries have cropped up to provide terrorism consulting, limos like armored tanks, and ongoing annuities for service brass to tell you the next Bin Laden is right around the corner of Smallville, America.

Look at what one rogue hero or villain named Snowden has done to every aspect of our cyberspace. We were fat dumb and happy to check our emails, catch the latest Facebook post, join the multitudes for this or that You Tube and then all of that shattered. We found “we know where you live” went far beyond a sophomoric threat. Who knows what kind of info they have on me? Ted’sHead may be subversive and downright heretical but you already knew that. But just ask yourself where we would be if this 29 year old had not decided to have a pang of conscience for what he was being paid $125,000 per year to slave away at?

Chavez, Mubarak, Hussein, Churchill, Eisenhower, Hitler, Lincoln, Jobs, Brandt, Gates, Roosevelt, Wilson, Stalin, Lenin, Buffett, Jesus et alia were solitary people. Somewhere along the line they broke from the pack. Some were prodigies and a few were ne’er do wells. Some were book learned but many got their PHD’s from the streets. Was it predestined or merely a turn of fate? Dunno but the bottom line is these individuals in every aspect managed to get the masses behind them. They changed history for better or worse. Now the real quandary is whether they were exceptional leaders or were their constituents dutiful sheep?

Whether you are radical or Messiah you have to be pitching change. The old way of doing things hasn’t quite worked out to the benefit of most. It can be a revolution of the left or the right but it has to be something different. Prosperity can be bland and fleeting. Someone is always going to be pissed off at something. You just have to find that burr in their saddle and tweak it. Refine the message and then sell like hell.

But I just can’t pass over what dopes we all are. Let’s just say there are a few hundred leaders of both government and industry in the world. There are over 6 billion of us working slobs that are led by these dudes and dudettes. Maybe I am just distasteful of anything authoritative or demagogic but this just gets in my craw on both sides of the fence. Why are we so eager to follow and nod dumbly when they tell us things could be better? Do we cogitate or merely capitulate?

I think we are all frustrated by something called government either by claiming it has too much largesse or not enough. We need to cut back waste and inefficiency. We need to stop fraud. We need to drastically overhaul our method of education. Infrastructure? Just look around you. But how many of us have really sat down and pondered these failings? Who is behind it? Why can’t charlatans and connivers be brought to the light of day?

Turns out very few of take time to study a problem. We are too busy. Just give me a capsule summary. I can’t read the whole story. Just let me listen to someone who thinks the same way as I do. Or better yet you just tell me which way to vote by party banner or brand loyalty. If Rush or Rachel say it is, then it must be so. School Boards and Water or Highway Commissions? Those people just dig that stuff. I can’t be bothered.

Mover and shakers take us for a ride every day. They really have it quite easy because no one doth protest too much. Sure we will grouse and especially after a cocktail or two but don’t worry fearless leaders we will all fall in line. I guess that makes us very democratic.The very few can set the tone…good or bad. Been like that for centuries. Give them a bone to chew on and they will follow you anywhere whether you are right or terribly wrong. Sleep tight. Don’t worry. You won’t know what hit you.

As always
Ted The Great

Factoids:
The average American spends up to 4 hours per day participating in social networking. The lower your economic status the time spent is higher. These are the same people who don’t have time to look into a variety of topics in depth. You know I am just so jammed. I have more important things to do.

The Internet has facilitated the growth of one or two person organizations. No longer hindered by “getting published” or achieving notoriety in the press, cyberspace has provided a petri dish for movements both good and bad.

The United Stated armed forces number 1,365,000. We spend $550 billion per annum to maintain this group. This is approximately 39% of what is spent by all nations of the world on defense. We have 285 ships of which 240 are designated warships. We have approximately 20,ooo aircraft.

Terrorist groups probably number less than 50. Abu Nadal, Hamas, Hezbulah and numerous national groups in Columbia, Spain and others. Loosely organized they probably have no more than a couple of hundred in any one command structure. The trained personnel are also no more than a thousand in any one group except for Hezbulah. These few wreak havoc in our civilized world and also have many thousand “sympathizers” who facilitate their activities. We may have to go to Plan B.

Today was special. I was going to hit balls on the range at Sawgrass. It was chilly but if you are a range rat like me you will go to the rock pile rain or shine. Before braving the elements I had to pay my ritual tribute to staff at the pro shop. Just Ted the Great spreading the wealth. If I don’t shake up at least 10-15 people a day I am not doing my job. Last stop as I exit has to be my screwy friend and Director of Golf, Greg Lecker.

Now Leck has been through the best and worst of life so we are somewhat simpatico. Of course on a quiet Monday afternoon he says,”Do you want to go see Gary Player?” Having been witness to a lot of our stunts and knowing that the Black Knight lives in South Africa I had to measure my response carefully. Why not and I jump in the cart. Seems he is playing on the course with journeyman Leonard Thompson and some people from the Golf Hall of Fame.

High on the hill the fourth tee overlooks the ocean but the view is the man. He may be 10 plus years older than any one else in the group and smaller in stature but you know it is him. Attired in black as he has for all these years there is not a hair or pleat out of place. His swing is effortless and the ball flies off that club as it has thousands of times. He broke into the PGA world in 1957 and proceeded to forge a career of 165 tournament wins including nine majors on the regular tour and an equal number on the senior tour. TTG is in the company of royalty.

Usually as one who enters the court we often are required to doff our chapeau, kneel or at least genuflect but that just won’t cut it here. His smile and manner make any man or woman feel at home. He has no idea who this goof ball in the “NAVY GOLF ” hat is but to him I am just another fellow traveler on this incredible journey called life and more specifically golf. I tended the pins and raked traps the rest of the way with a smile in my heart.

I marveled in so many ways. This guy is in phenomenal shape. He doesn’t overindulge in any sense of the word. His eyes sparkle. He has a jaunt in his step and his heart as he pushes 80. He is taking in the surrounding area and shape of the golf hole. He is seeing who is within earshot to tell them how lucky they are. He bemoans the shape of America not as a carping hag but as one who looks upon his brood and wonders how they have become so out of shape. He is not cruel or judgmental but rather a man who has been honest and straightforward all his life.

Kathy and I were in Hawaii a couple of years ago. There was a senior tournament not far from where we were staying on the Big Island. When I go to these affairs I hang out by the practice range. Hey, I come to watch golf swings and what better place to do it. There could not have been more than a handful of fellow spectators. Fred Couples, Jay Haas, Fuzzy Zoeller, and Ben Crenshaw were there. The latter walked no more than a few feet away from me. There was not a hint of recognition on any of their part. Look straight ahead,. The world does not exist or at least I don’t need it. I understand if there was a crush of people and this was the US Open but this is a laid back affair in Hawaii and we were a chip shot away. . Nada. Zilch towards any of us. I wonder how my new found buddy, Mr. Player would have handled this?

I also fast forwarded to the members of today’s crop of prima donnas. They helicopter in from home and fly by private jet between cities. Just a third of the way into the season the top money winner, Jimmy Walker is just shy of $4 million in earnings for the year. #50, Mark Leishman has pocketed $750,000. Mark who? Most of them are well endowed in the ego department. Not so in tact and approachability. I am standing next to a guy who has travelled over 25 million miles in pursuit of his craft but more importantly his love of a marvelous game. There are no airs here except pure class.

Whether you are a golfer or a corporate honcho there’s a lesson to be learned. No matter your office is a corner suite or a tee box you are a lucky dude or dudette.
Whether you make a little or a lot of money you are far better than some poor bastard in China or Sri Lanki that makes $1.50 per day for a lot harder work.
Whether you are a happy camper or someone with a bitch in your heart you at least have he ability to express yourself as I do without fear of retribution.
Whether you live in a mansion or a one bedroom apartment you have a roof over your head that is not corrugated or leaking. You have running water and indoor plumbing.
Whether you are healthy or desperately ill at least you have access to the latest medical technology has to offer. How horrible you had to wait a couple of hours.
Most and best of all, we are on the right side of the sod. Think of friends and children that have passed far too soon. On the wrong end of an insidious disease or an angry gun barrel. Just thank your lucky stars for where you are and don’t ever forget where you came from.

As always
Ted The Great.

Factoids;
Sawgrass Country Club’s 27 holes are littered with agua. There are 300,000,000 golf balls lost in America every year. A lot of them right here. A golf ball takes 500-1000 years to degrade. There have been over 5,000 patents issued for golf ball design.

Golf 4 Disabled helps those with spinal cord injuries, amputations, stroke residuals, visual impairments, head traumas, cerebral palsy, and multiple sclerosis enjoy the game of golf.

Tiger Woods has earned over $1.25 billion in his golf career. His daily workout is around 10 hours. He does 2-3 hours of conditioning and 7-8 hours of hitting balls, playing, chipping and putting. See Kath I am not that bad after all.

Golf as we know it probably started in Scotland in the 1450’s. The oldest 18 hole course in the US is the Chicago Golf Club founded in 1892 by Charles McDonald. Today there are approximately 17,500 courses in the US.

We as a nation and as a world are hyper about skin color. Nosey applications ask you if you are caucasian, black, brown, yellow and who knows what. How sad we are defined by just that. But let’s leave all that surface BS behind and get to the crux of the matter. Literally what is the color of your heart? Your soul? Scalpel please.

I have seen heart transplants on TV having been spared the open zipper approach my self.  As they flip the defective one in a stainless steel bowl, slimy and a bruised shade of purple doesn’t engender a symbol of love and affection. Yet think about your own. Is it warm and welcoming or cold and gray? Black like ebon keys or a ruby red like a good wine. Does it say I am open to all or is it granite like, a fortress not willing to be challenged?

That incredible masterpiece of  valves and plumbing sends a part of you coursing through your veins and arterials and begins to unmask your true mettle. Is your skin flush with crimson because of a soulmate’s kiss?  Maybe irate? Maybe embarrassed? Do you even  have feelings or are you wan and gray beyond signs of life? Does your skin radiate not from a deft surgeon’s hand but from depths of your personal canyons? Do you wear your age well and proudly or have you just let yourself go?

If you are your lips, are they red and vivacious or does the blue match the coldness in your heart? Your eyes. Are they soft hazel or steely blue? Maybe a deep mahogany betraying complexity? No matter how you try to be impervious they are a window into your soul. They can have the warmth of a fire or the chill of a rain soaked night.  Can you see clearly or is your existence blurred as through opaque glass?

Time to leave the friendly confines of us and move out into nearby space. Are your children and family in general an amorphous pale blob that must be tolerated or does each one stand out like a facet of a beautifully cut ornate diamond. Daring to be looked at from a totally new angle and appreciated in an ever burgeoning beauty. Wow! I have never seen you more striking. So alive. So special. This is great stuff but I must move on.

Do you look outside and see the multitude of greens and reds and purples in the prism of life or is your sky sullen and overcast? Even worse are you devoid of any sense of person or at best oyster white? Do you see the rising and setting of that orange orb in all its splendor and really grasp what this thing called life is? What color or texture is your air? Is smog laden like wet insulation or crisp like a cold Perrier that feels so good to be sucked in? Do you see the dew glistening or  just curse it for ruining your freshly buffed shoes?  Can you meditate and take in each breath savoring its power to regenerate and let go of all things toxic on the exhalation? Are your days precious to be lived second by second or just another stop on this local train to oblivion?

What color is your job? Does it sear and challenge, dying for you to take another bite or is it bland like cold cereal or maybe a cold block of  day old risotto? When you look at life are you a ref in zebra stripes or a coach with a faded red ball cap. Do you lay down rules for yourself and others or do you want to instill passion and excitement for the task ahead?  Push your limits as well as theirs. Or are you and your charges full of don’ts.

What color is your favorite room? It is rich in leather with that slightly musty fragrance or perhaps bright and airy bombarding the senses? Does your living room have chairs that beckon you to sink  deep down or are they stiff and formal warning off any interlopers? Monochromatic and indirect fluorescents highlighting beige walls. Elevator music. Viewing hours of the body will be between 7:00-9:00 PM. Donations in lieu of flowers.

What do your clothes say about you? Do you wear vibrant pinks, yellows, greens and poplins in the summer? Why don’t you wear them all the time? Do you shun the outrageous because you really don’t like to be bold or because you think your world won’t approve? An outrageous scarf or jaunty chapeau is just the thing for those mid winter blues.

So many questions.  So few answers but then again…. Don’t tell me you don’t know because deep down you do. Life can be a palette of colors like beautiful balloons beckoning you to come on up and lift off. Paint with abandon. Try color variations by mixing and matching. Go ahead. Be avant and hurl those pellets of imagination at the canvas and revel as they explode into new delights. You are the only one judging this art fair and you get a ribbon no matter what.

I don’t like blacks and whites or even grays.  Onyx and Pearl  are interesting in geometric shapes but in a living room they seem to scream “Whoa” and leave your spontaneity at the door. I love tulips and roses and daffodils and daisies. Azaleas and peonies as they crack open. Seems like they go on blooming forever. But that is just me .

Do some of us embrace  being neutral or do we just not know the way?  It’s not fair to judge and I won’t try to tell you how to do things. But we should question from time to time. We should stop and take stock. We will never pass this way or that again and we owe it to ourselves to give it our best shot. Paint on mes amis. Paint on before those tubes of oil and acrylic dry up. No one is watching. Just do it!

As always

Ted The Great

Factoids…None this week. Gone painting.

We watched a great movie the other night. “Nebraska” starring Bruce Dern. It was about good old Middle America, warts and all. It was in black and white and as it went on you knew the medium was apt. There was nothing special other than the weirdness of family. The was nothing out of the ordinary except the incredibly stupid things we do as humans. And that was the absolute beauty of it.

A plane is missing as of post time. Malaysian Air with 273 people aboard. A sleek Boeing 777 with every aeronautic contraption known to man. A flight deck chock full of computers of every sort and three very capable people in charge. If you know anything about Malaysia itself  you know this populace to be meticulous and its airline followed suit. The pilot even has a flight simulator in his house but no one has any idea what happened. No record. No trace. Something either mechanical or human went terribly wrong.

This is somewhat similar to an Air France flight on its way from Rio to Paris. Lost somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean with little if any hint of what happened. Turned out the air speed pods had frozen and given the plane’s computers faulty readings. The pilots probably had never seen a malfunction of this sort and reacted if at all, too late. The most bizarre part of all of this is people and legislators are screaming for answers. We have millions of successful flights every year. We have defied gravity with the aluminum behemoths and when one fails we cannot believe it.

Accidents of any sort are so contradictory to our lifestyles today. Everything seems capable of being ruled by algorithms. On Wall Street we have trading computers that do everything on automatic with no human interventions. They buy or sell in nanoseconds and at the end of the day all you have to do is check the machine as to how much money you made or lost. That is all loaded into another machine which then defines your profit or loss in the form of a share price for your entity. And the beat goes on.

We can program the electronic and environmental systems in our houses. Set the mood or the temperature. Maybe a little of both. We outfit our cars with devices to warn of danger and even apply the brakes. Soon your Ford or Chevvy will take care of everything.  Wristlets monitor your heart, blood pressure, blood sugar and your state of sobriety. Uh oh. They’ll monitor your genomes and tell you all you want to know. Maybe even some little pearls you don’t want to know.

We bundle up our kids in helmets, and safety straps. We have allergies and anatomical reactions that were unheard of years ago. For you old farts, how many of you knew kids with peanut allergies when we were growing up? On my bike I had no fenders and the handlebars were flipped backwards to hold my mitt and my bat. The center bar was just perfect for Lee Hayes to hop aboard so I could ride him home from PBC baseball here we didn’t wear helmets. Probably why I turned out as crazy as I am.

I am not fighting progress or science but just trying to give it some perspective. It can’t solve everything. The markets don’t always go up or down as predicted by this spread sheet or guru or Wall Street savant. The economy does defy and even outperform the forecasting of intellectuals locked in their Ivory Towers. People do have a stroke or heart attack  just after being thoroughly checked out in a two day physical at the Mayo Clinic.

We think we have the weather figured out and just when we get smug Mother Nature says, up yours. Global warming? Tell that to the Midwest and Northeast this winter. We were supposed to have 6 major hurricanes last summer and really had none. The more planes and satellites we throw at these things the better we will get but don’ t ever think you have it total wired. That really is the folly of man.

We played golf this morning. You have every rangefinder known to man that now tell you how far it is to the pin and what club you should use. You have a ball and set of clubs that are calibrated to your particular swing. Actually that is an impossibility with my crazy swing. Your sunglasses are designed to help you see the breaks in the green. But as we all know golf is played between the ears. Yes dopey, it is you that has to put the swing in motion. It is you who has to execute. Can’t blame your 95 on the equipment and once again that is the poetry of things.

One night on the beach as we were having a cocktail we noticed an older man sitting by himself watching the sunset. As we chatted he spoke of his grandchildren. He said he had ten and then corrected himself and said nine. His grandson had died of brain cancer and was buried last fall. At the funeral his wife noted how sad it was that the little guy would not know anyone in heaven. She sat down in the pew and then proceeded to collapse and die. With tears in his eyes I couldn’t help but think this man probably hadn’t put a lot of stock in  science. He knew life as it is, for all its unpredictability and brutality. A wonderful but sad lesson for this author to learn.

As always

Ted The Great

Factoids:

There are approximately 30,000,000 airline flights per year with an infinitesimal number of accidents. The longest scheduled non stop today is form Sidney to Dallas. A distance of some 7500 miles taking up to 16 hours. That is two third of a day in the air.

Contrary to popular opinion, in golf a player’s handicap is intended to show a player’s potential, not a player’s average score. The frequency by which a player will play to their handicap is a function of that golfer’s handicap, as low handicappers are statistically more consistent than higher handicappers. The average male golfer  in the US has a handicap of 16.1, while the average female has a handicap of 28.9.

A few cool automobile safety features. Parking assist. The car will automatically size up a parking space and then proceed to maneuver into it by itself. I wonder if you can use this in your driver’s test? Collision avoidance. This will sense when you are too close to the car in front and apply the brakes automatically. Side view mirror blind spot warning. Will actually tell you before you change lanes of a car in your blind spot.

In 2011, adults drank too much and drove about 112 million times per year – almost 300,000 incidents of drinking and driving a day.

In 2011, 226 children were killed in drunk driving crashes. Of those, 122 (54% percent) were riding with the drunk driver.

Gated communities are all the rage here in Florida and elsewhere. Pull up. Security gives you the once over. May I please see some form of identification? Who are you visiting? What is the purpose of your visit?. How long are you staying? Is this customs or Checkpoint Charlie in old Berlin? I just want to drive down the palm lined  streets to my old  buddy’s house. Can I go now? Yes, I will keep my pass on me at all times and not go past the due date. Thank you officer. You are so kind. What’s that? German shepherds patrol at night? I’ll put that in my memory bank. This must be paradise. Later dude.

The concept sells. Paranoia reigns. Even inside the massive gates people lock their cars when they come to your house for dinner. Is this for real? I have left the keys in my car while it’s sat on the street in Denver. I know I am the other side of the spectrum but Ted’s Head got to thinking about this whole form of living one’s life. That’s where the trouble started. Is it paralyzing fear or just the ability to withdraw into one’s own little world?

Inside the gates we are among our own kind. There is a marvelous realization that the rest of the world doesn’t exist or at least I don’t have to deal with it. You are going to play by my rules or else. If you don’t like it you can tee up your golf ball elsewhere smart ass. We do things a certain way here and have done so for a long long time. Stability instead of creativity. That’s the Golden Rule. Why? Don’t ask such a stupid question.

But wait, there’s more. If you really think about it there are lots of communities that exist with or without the gates that are the same. Isn’t the whole state of Florida just like one of those? We don’t worry about the fact that the Northeast is getting the crap kicked out of it weather wise. We are just fine down here. The drought in the west? Serves those weirdos right. This is starting to get good.

Could we consider the wrong side of town one of these enclaves? I believe they have rules in the “hood”. The guys guarding the gates are sitting in low riders.  I think if I were to show up in my pinks and greens I would have to be violating the dress code. You would probably fear more for your life than you car. Teeing off probably uses your head instead of a ProV.  C’est la guerre.

Jews,Mormons,Muslims, Catholics? Sure, they are  gated communities. How about Polish, Italian and Korean parts of town? We keep to ourselves. Let’s not even talk about nations. Ukraine? What business is that of ours? We have so much to do at home. India, China, Mexico. Let’s just build a big fence. I think we have tried that already.

I am knee deep in LaLa land down here in the Sunshine State. That’s not a shot but an observation. Some guy asked me once what I thought of Florida. Very nice, I replied. He said,”We kind of look at it as God’s waiting room.” Holy Shiite! This is a mindset and its contagious. I had to shake myself from the doldrums to conjure up this version of Ted’s Head. Don’t fear I am getting back to my feisty self as we speak and I pound the keyboard mightily.

But think about it. As we stand behind our fortresses of whatever sort we don’t even look out. There’s gentility here in Pleasantville. We claim we are too busy to keep up with current events. Sound bytes are just fine. Don’t want anybody messing with my deeply held beliefs.  We despise the government but won’t raise a finger of our own to do something about it. And then from environmentalists to Occupiers of Wall Street we decry the activist. Jerks. Bums. Get a job.

I watched Bill Moyers this weekend. He is as left as you can get but there is a beauty to his show. It lies in its intensity. The guests have a passion whether misguided or not that comes out as sweet prose rather than hyperbolic rhetoric. Harshness can have a smooth edge. I think I have told you before about Louis Farrakhan, the black radical. I watched him speak on the telly one afternoon for over an hour. I didn’t agree with him but it was fascinating to hear him. He actually made some decent points. And at least I listened. Does that make me a weirdo too? Please don’t answer that.

We are all entitled to live our lives any way we want. You can stay behind the gates and make the by laws for your part of town, your belief and even your own home. You call it freedom. I call it incarceration. As in everything it is just a matter of semantics. But when things go bad don’t blame anyone but ourselves. Our government is out of touch but we don’t hold them to task. We are just so thankful they haven’t really hit our beloved self interests. Minor inconveniences. That’s all.

My gated community is the world. It is moving so fast and uncontrollably that it really is hard for this old fart to keep up. But I am going to keep at it. There are streets and neighborhoods to travel. There are people to meet and ideas to exchange. There is so much to understand and learn. If we are going down life’s highway and you are doing 25 mph, please get in the right lane. I really don’t want to run into you. I am doing at least 75.

As always

Ted The Great

Factoids:

Florida is not the southernmost state. It is Hawaii.

The oldest average age for a state in the country is not Florida(40.5) but Maine(42.7).The National average is 37.2 and the youngest state is Utah(29.2) It does have the oldest percentage of their population considered seniors (17.3)

There are 1484 golf courses in Florida with about 200 being private. It will cost you from $5,000 to $200,000 initiation fee to whack the little white ball in seclusion.The annual dues? Somewhere between $1,000-30,000 per annum.

The world wide population of people 60 years of age and older has doubled since 1980 and is forecast to reach 2 billion by 2050

Ghetto

noun

a part of a city, occupied by a minority group or groups…..Hmmmm!

Kathy and I left Denver on Sunday in what is supposed to be Ted’s Magical Mystery Tour of Florida and environs. With a “rocket box” installed on the rooftop of the trusty Subaru Outback we set out against the elements. Yesterday morning in Columbia, MO brought with it sheets of ice and sleet. We like driving but this was a white knuckle job until we got south of St Louis. The car was covered with ice which with the turret up top looked like the war machine from Animal House. I am trying to figure out if I was “D Day” or Belushi at the wheel in search of the accursed Dean Wormer. I have been on double secret probation my whole life.

As we got under way there was an airing of “Ted” on NPR. They were discussing happiness and how to achieve it. If only it were so simple. But there were truisms and they didn’t revolve around things but rather a state of mind. The gist of the conversation revolved around outreach and a nice thing called gratitude. Not particularly looking for the next good hit but realizing how really fortunate we are. That’s a good concept. I’ll let you know if it works.

We like driving for a couple of  reasons. The first is that is really enjoyable to see and experience different people and their cultures. Wait TTG, you sound like you are visiting different countries. In a way we are. Sure we could fly and ship the car as someone suggested but the view from 30,000 is a bit jaded. The second part is the best. As you put things on cruise control you can really just sit back and think. You let your mind wander as long as you keep the wheels on the road. There is no CNN or FOX per se but rather a bit of reverie that is not only stimulating but refreshing.

I find myself looking at the dark and rich soil of Kansas and seeing just good people. A lot of our leaders past and present have grown up on those farms. I mean the good ones that remember where they came from. Eisenhower, Truman, and Dole to name a few. I see cities like Kansas City and St Louis and wonder how they will fare in the future. The brilliant skyscrapers last pushed to sky twenty years ago and they look a little dated. The glitz has gone elsewhere and now they have to get creative. I see the vast and remote fields of Arkansas and Mississippi and I wonder how we can possibly get education and healthcare to these people without even considering Obamacare.

I see the huge Burlington Northern and Santa Fe container handling yards  in Memphis and you have to marvel at our countrywide distribution system. Who knows where the goods in those boxes originated but you have to bet on the far east  or some other haven of cheap labor. Besides that as you pass this little town or that you are blown away at the number of ways people earn a living. Health care is big as are personal injury lawyers if the billboards are any indication. Widgets and whatchamacallits abound. And that also is a good thing. But there are so many fallen down shacks and deserted storage buildings you think of dreams that blew up in someone’s face. Then again that really is the beauty of the American landscape. No blame. No shame. Just get in and try it all over. Bully for you.

We spent last night in Birmingham, Alabama. The beauty of road travel allows you to mooch off some wonderful people. Ed and Kendrick are the best. Neat but not gaudy is a phrase designed for them. They have everything you could want in life but there is not a scintilla of over the top. They took us into their home and shared their life long city with us. There is a gentility and graciousness of the South that has been tarnished by a thing called prejudice and that is not altogether fair.

Ed and I spoke of this. We both agreed we could not look at another human being and hurl invective and rage but it was there. Ah, before ye judge think of your own little world. Tell me you are without this bias or that. Italians? Jews? Women? Not in my country club you say. Sometimes the bigotry in our heart far outweighs the race riots of long ago. That’s not absolving people but just don’t be so smug. I try not to be.

Even though it is February you can feel rivalries as you wander through. The Wildcats. The Jayhawks. Does Missouri as a whole really hate Kansas as a whole? Roll Tide. No way I am Auburn through and through. The Seminoles and Gators shine up their armor for next year’s war at opposite ends of the interstate. We drove through Nebraska one time in the middle of May. There was a woman in a red car with a red dress on and I am sure she was humming the Nebraska fight song. These are sicknesses for which there is no cure.

Our 2,000 miles are drawing to a close but there is a lot more ahead of us. I hope you don’t mind if I share thoughts with you from time to time. About people, places and most of all life. Get out of the road for an hour or two. Even if you are doing 80 things go slow. Turn on some good music and think about this world we live in. If we ever figure it out it is a pretty cool place to be. Road to happiness? I hope so for all of us and not just the few.

As always

Ted The Great.

Factoids:

Animal House was made in 1976 for $2.8 million and grossed(no play on words) $141 million at last call. I try to watch it and Fletch at least once a year.

Vestas is a wind turbine company with many installations in Kansas. There is a startling array of 111 of these monsters on Interstate 70. This one company has over 48,000 in operation worldwide providing power for some 25 million people. The height of each unit is over 300 feet and can rotate at a speed exceeding 150 miles per hour.

The Interstate system was championed by President Dwight D Eisenhower. Construction started in 1956 and now accounts for over 47,000 miles of interconnected highways. The highways are kept up by a 18.5 cent tax on gasoline. There is no new money for construction and the Highway Trust Fund is in trouble. Not enough money is causing the creation of toll toads which of course everyone is against. So let’s see. We don’t want to increase taxes and we don’t want to pay tolls. Sounds like gridlock to me except the roads need work.

With Division I, II, III  combined the total number of  college football teams comes to around 1000. There has to be somebody you can root for.

There are 23,000 inhabitants of Itwamba  County, Mississippi. Think of all the county services provided by this and thousands of other counties in the US. Then think of redundancies with adjoining small counties. Do you think there is a whole lot of waste.?  Sorry, I was just thinking.