Let's Tweak Those Lame Campaign Slogans, Shall We?

I happened across some old classic political campaign slogans earlier this week, and when contrasted with the very lame, unimaginative current slogans – well, let's say that it was no contest. In general, the candidate with the catchier slogan wins the election. That is a very general rule of thumb and there have been exceptions to the rule. The most notable one was the 1964 slogan for Mr. Goldwater, which we will discuss below. First, a look at a few classic slogans from the past: Lyndon Baines Johnson- 1964 “All the Way With LBJ” Seems kind of silly and childish now, and heck, it says absolutely nothing about what his policies would be about, but that doesn't matter now because it was a winning and memorable slogan. His opponent Mr. Goldwater had what some consider to be a stronger slogan: “In your heart you know he's right.” But the classic daisy campaign ad pretty much finished off Goldwater. Bill Clinton- 1992 had two: “Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow” and “Putting People First”-- plus another semi-official slogan, “It's the economy, stupid.” However 1996's “Building America's Bridge to the 21st Century” was the one line that appeared on buttons and everything else. Wow, that really told you what their “vision thing” was about! It was all about being future-oriented and welcoming the application of new computer technologies to the work place. They did not mention that dirty old, well-paying manufacturing jobs were going to fall away, but that's another story. Al Gore- 2000 “Prosperity & Progress” Aw, man, this is where Gore went wrong. He went from sharing a ticket with one of the best slogans to sharing a ticket (with Joe Lieberman) on one of the weakest. A similar slogan (Peace and Prosperity) worked for Eisenhower in 1956 but he was already an incumbent. OK, at least it told you that he was looking forward and not backward. Ronald Reagan- 1980 slogan “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” 1984 “Morning in America” One of the stronger slogans in recent years, it told you that the U.S. could or should look forward to a renewal of strength and influence in the world. It was much stronger than Mr. Mondale's slogan, “America Needs a Change” - a phrase successfully tweaked by the Obama campaign years later. The 1980 tag line succeeded when running against Jimmy Carter, who in my opinion was a victim of economic history. Richard Nixon- 1968 slogan “Nixon's the One!” One of the simplest slogans ever, but it was often seized upon by comics and others once the Watergate scandal broke out. John F. Kennedy- 1960 Tagline was “A Time for Greatness” – a line full of hubris and just asking for it. But fortunately Mr. Nixon had an equally lame tagline: “Experience Counts”, while the official slogan was “For the Future”. Dwight D. Eisenhower- 1952 “I Like Ike” Another silly slogan but still it was memorable and that's what counts. Another feature in its favor was that it used a nickname for the candidate, helping voters to identify him as a friend or neighbor. It beat his opponent's (Adlai Stevenson) yawner of a slogan: “That Experienced Candidate”. Barack Obama- 2008 slogan was “Change You Can Count On” even though the stock market crash and subsequent recession made it difficult to forge new policies and revamp government. But fortunately his opponent Mr. McCain changed his slogan six times and never settled on a message. The 2012 Campaign: This year's campaign slogans are “Forward” and “Believe in America”. Can you even tell from the slogan which party it belongs to? NO! For future reference, the first one belongs to the incumbent, Pres. Obama, while the second one belongs to the challenger, Mr. Romney. Often the campaign directors settle on their final slogan or tagline around the time of the convention, so it is possible that we could see new, improved versions. But let's help them along, shall we? After all, you cannot trust committees with much. For Mr. Romney, who will probably be forever remembered as the Etch-A-Sketch candidate, a slogan incorporating that phrase is a must! I propose, “We'll Etch-A-Sketch American Jobs”. Like it? I thought you would. Now the incumbent, Pres. Obama, has a problem because as the incumbent he cannot propose “change” once again. So he has to have something that helps convince people to keep the same horse they rode in on, a proven winner. Or as the Lincoln's 1864 slogan, “Don't swap horses in the middle of the stream” He could tweak a campaign from the 1800s, “Vote Yourself a Farm” and change it to “Vote Yourself a Job”. That would make people get out to the polls and vote. Anyway, all this sloganeering brings up another variation, the parody of a slogan. Such as “In your heart, you know he's nuts” in reference again to the classic Goldwater slogan. There was an anti-FDR slogan in 1940 – “Washington Wouldn't, Grant Couldn't, Roosevelt Shouldn't” – referring to Roosevelt's running for an unprecedented third term. The many stories about Romney lend themselves well to a slew of anti-slogans – based on his maltreatment of the family dog, his offshore bank accounts, his Mormon religion, his stonewalling over releasing more than one year's tax return. Even the fact that he is raising so much money can boomerang on him. Oh, doesn't it just make ya wanna sink your teeth into writing catchy anti-slogans??? Something like “I Believe Seamus” - “Believe in Ben Franklins” or “Believe in Dead Presidents” - “You People Vote For Me, Me, Me”.

Do You See Dead People? In your dreams, I mean?

There are many ways to interpret dreams of meeting or talking with people who in real life have passed on. I recall a cousin who was rather alarmed to report a dream to her grandmother in which she had met someone that she knew had passed on years before. She was told not to worry, that just means you will meet someone that you have not seen for a long time. That interpretation seemed to work for her, so I won't belabor that instance. But there are other ways to interpret it and the only way to know what your dream symbols mean is to pay attention to clues in the specific dream. Often people find that their dream symbols mean something very different from the same symbol in someone else's dream. Wilda Tanner writes in her book, the Mystical Magical Marvelous World of Dreams about communicating with the dead in dreams: “Many people have had the dream experience of meeting and talking to people we think of as “dead”. This is quite commonplace, since their spiritual bodies are on the same (astral) plane where you and I travel every night; so it is perfectly natural that you should run into them from time to time. This is a frequent occurrence in dreams and nothing to be alarmed about. It is possible in dreams or in prayer, to ask forgiveness or give it, and to work out matters we were not ready or able to resolve before their departure. Or we can simply have a nice visit. Don't be surprised to find that months or years after a death, a dream may point out something which has not yet been forgiven, released or worked out between you. This may seem minor to you but can be a blockage to the progress of your loved one, so it's best to take the matter seriously and take time to cooperate in whatever seems necessary.”* I have several experiences of dreaming of people who have passed on. One was rather funny in the choice of venue: it was at an airport terminal. I met with my father and an uncle, both of whom had passed on, plus my mother who was still living. Everyone was just very happy to be able to get together and chat a bit. One that was rather puzzling was the dream in which my late mother wanted to move in with me, so I had to start looking for a larger apartment where she could have a room. Finally after waking up I realized how ludicrous this was. She's DEAD, I told myself. She doesn't NEED a room! The meaning of this dream still eludes me. I had one or two soon after my father passed on that were possible examples of communication with the dead. In one, I had a car that was having problems getting up the hills in a snowstorm. I kept trying to go up a hill in our neighborhood but the car kept slipping back down. It turns out that two of the tires were very low in air. I talk with my dad and he was trying to explain something. When I woke, I felt that he was trying to tell me died because he was “too tired” (two tired) to go on. * from Mystical Magical Marvelous World of Dreams, Wilda Tanner, 1988, Sparrow Hawk Press, Tahlequah, OK, page 180. ISBN 0-945027-02-8.

Books: Vampire Hunting Becomes a Family Affair in Children of the Vampire

The middle volume in the trilogy of the vampire diaries is supposed to be the weakest of the three. If that is the case, then I am determined to find the rest of Jeanne Kalogridis' trilogy. “Children of the Vampire: The Diaries of the Family Dracul” is a well-written, well-researched novel of a clan's descendents who feel cursed by the family history. The reader is treated to diary entries of various lengths from two brothers – Stefan and Abraham Van Helsing – their mother Mary Windham Tsepesh Van Helsing (who is not a descendant of the clan but married into it), and of an aunt and uncle to the brothers – Zsuzsanna Tsepesh and Arkady Tsepesh. (Tsepesh means impaler in Romanian.)

The story, set in the mid-1800s, follows Arkady as he tries to protect his son from being enslaved by Vlad, who is still flitting around in remarkably well-preserved form, considering he is 400 years old. The brothers are swept up in the clan curse and away from their medical practice when Stefan is abducted by his nasty yet glamorous aunt Zsuzsanna. Family secrets leak out all over the place, such as the truth of the boys' identity. It is Abraham who shoulders the responsibility of trying to weaken Vlad by releasing victims of vampirism. By killing them in the ritualistic way (that is, with a stake through the heart PLUS beheading) their souls are released and can at last rest in peace. He is trained and aided in this mission by a mysterious hermit-like monk who lives in the middle of a forest. The hermit has a knowledge of both herbs and spiritual warfare. “Jeanne Kalogridis” is a pen name for J. M. Dillard, who is probably better-known as a writer of several sci-fi novels in the Star Trek genre. She also wrote the novelization of the cultish hit movie Bulletproof Monk (2003). The other titles of the Dracula trilogy are Covenant of the Vampire (the first volume) and Lord of the Vampire (the final volume). This middle volume has been criticized for repeating some of the material in the first one and setting the stage for the last one – but I feel that important new characters appear, such as the hermit who aids Abraham in his mission. I like this novel! I would have been sorely disappointed if had resembled most of the other vampire-themed media for the teen crowd. And I am not interested in the Anne Rice vampire stories set in the modern day, sorry about that. But I have seen most of the movies about Dracula, and I like this novel because it is well-grounded in the traditional story and background of the characters and legend. Children of the Vampire: The Diaries of the Family Dracul, Jeanne Kalogridis (aka J. M. Dillard), Delacorte Press (of Bantam Doubleday Dell), New York, 1995, 301 pages.

Got My Lil' Blue Voter Card This Week, YAY! Now I'm Official

I finally filled out a new voter registration application a couple weeks ago and sent it in. So yesterday was a great day because I received my little blue voter card in the mail. It gives my name/address, the polling place building name and address, the congressional and senate and house district numbers, a precinct number, even the school district number. A website and phone number are also kindly provided, in case you have questions about how to get there or what hours the polls are open. Surprisingly, the polling place is a church. That is a new one for me because heretofore all my polling places have been grade schools. Was there supposed to be separation of church and state, except for where you vote? Well, I am not going to question it if they have enough parking for everyone. If any readers out there still need to register, there is probably same-day registration in your state, but it is is helpful to do it ahead of time if you have any uncertainty about where your polling place is. Also if you need to assemble your required ID, the application lists the acceptable forms of identification. They are: State Driver's License: This includes a learner's permit or state ID card or the receipt for one. Tribal ID. The ID number of your Driver's License, US Passport, Tribal ID, State ID card, US Military ID, or Student ID. This is in case you are awaiting a replacement card or something, but have your copy of the order or receipt. Other Photo ID plus either a Utility Bill, State Fee Statement, or Student Fee Statement. Then there is a category of proofs that do not involve a current ID or utility bill. They are: Vouched for. Someone in the same home or a neighbor vouches that you live at said address. Late Notice. I am not sure what this is; could be a late notice re property taxes, or the library. Previous Registration in the Same Precinct. (if you moved only a few blocks away from your old address) Student ID with College List. I presume this means if you are not currently enrolled, or on student break, since a current Student ID alone is sufficient identification. I should mention one more thing: In some states, a pilot's license or other specialized licenses are acceptable proofs of identification. You will have to check your own state regulations on that. A pilot's license was acceptable when I lived in Wisconsin, tho I never met a pilot when I was registering people at the polls. I hope everyone who wants to vote, can get to the polls and do so this November. There are plenty of volunteer drivers who cart people to their polling station on election day for those who do not drive and cannot walk the distance anymore. Call your local party office or campaign office to be put in touch with the volunteer organizer.

My Fave Olympic Sport is “Speed Raking”; Burns the calories if ya do it right!

The leaves are starting to fall this time of year, putting me in mind of one of the few sports that I could have performed at the Olympic level. I am speaking of Speed Raking, which like Speed Walking doesn't look like much at first. MY version of raking does NOT include any gas-powered machines, so forget that. MY version of speed raking involves old-fashioned tools known as “rakes” and sometimes the judicious use of garbage-can lids as leaf grabbers. Quaint, I know. But sometimes I am such an old-fashioned gal But one needs to have a plan of attack in dealing with the layout of one's own yard. Where are the trees that you have to rake around? Are they centrally located on the plot or near sidewalks? Try not to obsess about every single leaf. Face it, more leaves will fall within ten minutes of when you finish. Deal with it. Such is life, or in le Francais, c'est le vie. Where we might dub this Vitesse Raking instead. I liked to rake the yard when I was a kid and teen at the old homestead. It was a bit of a job, but I liked being out in the crisp air (appropriately dressed of course) and soaking up what might be the last sunshine till spring. However, I did not have the luxury of taking my time on a Saturday afternoon once I was taking care of mom and trying to work a full-time job. So I had to learn a new style of raking, yeah you read that right. Instead of laboriously trying for every leaf, I concentrated on the areas covered most densely with leaves from the apple trees we had and from the city elm and maple trees, plus the giant maple tree next door. That sounds like most of the yard would be carpeted in leaves, right? That sounds like I'd be wading knee-deep in crinkly foliage, right? Not necessarily. Ya gotta assume that I have been at least trying to stay on top of the leaf situation. And ya gotta assume that most leaves fall fairly close to the trees they came from, especially with the shorter trees and shrubs. So, that means that my plan of attack centers on concentrating on those puddles of leaves and bringing them to the nearest curb. No starting at the corner of the lot anymore – no time for that kind of luxury. Starting under the small cherry tree near the garage, I rake that bundle towards the next tree nearest the curb, a young tree with mercifully few branches and leaves. Try to picture a row of three small fruit trees along the inside of the lot line, facing three young trees along the center line of the lot, and the curb as the goal still further. I found that raking a row of leaves in high-density areas like this towards the curb was much more efficient than raking along the entire lot line. The latter strategy entailed a lot more work than I needed to do, and who wants to do that? No one gives ya any brownie points for that kind of thing. So about three-quarters of the way to the curb, I have a pretty nice mound about fifteen feet long, which I compress to maybe ten feet or so. At this point I can break off sections to take all the way to the curb, raking briskly all the while. You don't have to work up a sweat at this, because you are not actually lifting anything heavy. And the crisp air tends to keep you from overheating, anyway. I neglected to mention that this is a corner lot, so you may have had a hard time picturing this. But this side that just described is the long side, between the house and the garage. Next up is the front yard which is relatively a piece of cake, because I can just concentrate on the city trees along the curb and push leaves right into the road. About three short strokes of the rake covers the width of the grassy strip. At times all summer I have wished it were covered in gravel or something else I did not have to mow, honest, but right now it does not seem bad at all. Once the job is done comes the best part, the part where you sit down inside, your cheeks all rosy, with a hot cup of tea or cider or cocoa. And you can look out the window as ten, fifteen minutes later it looks like you did not rake. But that's how it goes, doesn't it? Now I have to caution you, the one downside that can mess up your speed-raking plans is the neighborhood dog-walker who has not cleaned up after his dog. Now, don't get me wrong, we all love the dogs. But it is the owner who is the mutt! Just watch your step and tiptoe through the tulips as they say. We have ways of getting back at those bad owners but that is another topic for another day...

“Pain Chronicles” takes your mind off those little aches (and on to the big ones)

There is so much in this book that it is hard to begin. The story part of the book centers on the main character, a young woman who suddenly becomes acquainted with pain after a day of swimming with a new romantic interest. While there may have been some guilt involved in precipitating the pain, it becomes undeniably a physical problem that she begins to deal with every day. Only after a year and a half does she get a proper diagnosis that this is a degenerative disease. Along the way we are educated on approaches to pain going back to the Egyptian era. The modern era is not a whole lot better, where doctors are afraid to prescribe enough painkillers so that victims can get at least some of their lives back. Docs would rather sacrifice patients' stomachs and/or livers on NSAIDs rather than prescribe opiates or other drugs. Which brings to mind the fact that many docs prescribe Wellbutrin, a drug normally given to depressed patients, because it has the side effect of reducing pain. The author, Melanie Thernstrom, works in a great deal of research into pain, some of which may or may not be useful to the reader. Such as, do you know that cursing (with the curse word of your choice) tends to allow people to tolerate pain or discomfort longer than not cursing? Do you know that chronic pain tends to shrink the brain mass? The latter conclusion comes from a study at Northwestern University (under Dr A V Apkarian) which found “death of neurons owing to excitotoxicity and inflammatory agents” and that “chronic pain appears to diminish cognitive abilities and interfere with parts of the brain that are involved in making emotions assessments, including decision making” among other things. That is disturbing enough, to think that chronic pain is in effect, making people dumber – or at least making them make poor decisions – and that people who do not have their pain controlled by proper medications or other treatments cannot give their best at work or in their private lives. The good news is that this damage is not permanent. Brain scans showed that chronic pain had “dramatically” reduced the amount of gray matter in patients' skulls, with the loss averaging about 1.3 cubic centimeters for every year of unrelieved pain. Even more alarming is that the loss occurred in parts of the brain that were normally able to moderate pain. However, a German research study found that patients who had chronic hip pain but got a hip replacement, their gray matter regenerated. Upon reflection, this study poses hope not only for sufferers of chronic pain but victims of brain degenerative diseases of all kinds. Other techniques offer hope for modulating or controlling pain. A study found that electrical stimulation of parts of the brain that modulate pain, produced not just modest pain reduction but total analgesia. Another approach is similar to biofeedback, in which people watch a picture of their brain function as they learn to to either increase pain or block pain. In other words, their thoughts controlled how much pain they felt at any given time. There is much reason to hope that medicine's failure to conquer pain, the final medical frontier, may finally yield to the insights produced by modern research. In the mean time, let's hope that physicians can learn to be merciful and prescribe proper doses of effective pain medications. THE PAIN CHRONICLES, by Melanie Thernstrom, Farrar Straus and Giroux, New York, 2010, 329 pages not including notes and index.

Another Sign of Inflation: Package Shrinkage Hits Dollar Stores

A recent visit to my friendly neighborhood dollar store, one of the Dollar Tree chain, left me with an alarming sign of yet more inflation in our grocery stores. While I only nailed three items that had clearly shrunk their packaging, it was enough to make more vigilant about size changes.

The first item was an ordinary family pack of white table napkins. My prior purchase of Soft & Silky single-ply napkins held 180. The new pack holds 160. Readers may say, big hairy deal, this is only 20 napkins less. But this is a reduction of 12 percent.

The other item was Awesome Oxygen, the laundry detergent enhancer and stain remover. The old plastic tub held 16 ounces; the new tub held only 12 ounces. To put it another way, the package has shrunk by a whole 25 percent.

A third item is the multi-pack of chewing gum. No matter what the Wrigley brand -- Spearmint or Juicy Fruit or Extra -- where the strip once held five 5-stick packages of gum, they now hold just four packages. In other words, the multi-pack has shrunk from 25 total sticks to 20 sticks. This is a shrinkage of 20 percent.

The first time I purchased a four-unit package, nearly a month ago, I failed to recognize the shrinkage. I just scratched my head thinking I had already absentmindedly used a pack. But about a week ago when I bought a couple more packs, I made sure to notice how many were really in there. Wow, snookered again by the product-shrinking gremlin.

Conversation with the store manager produced nothing but a disavowal of any control over package sizing. I did not expect much from the manager, other than an apology for any inconvenience.

All of us on the receiving end of corporate decisions always feel so helpless to do anything other than cough up the price increases and package shrinkages. One can always stock up on other brands or older packages to cushion oneself against the inevitable for as long as possible. With luck, one can even get through the winter without actually shelling out for higher prices/smaller packages.

This brings up the true story of the coffee maven, from the book Tipping Point. This person was a bit of a fanatic about following coffee prices. He noticed a news item that Brazil had suffered a severe frost in the coffee-farming regions (this was several years ago). He figured that it was a matter of time before price increases would hit the consumer market, so he began buying up coffee on sales, with coupons, etc. at ridiculously low prices. He probably wound up with a year’s supply while other consumers where bellyaching about the sudden price surge.
In a similar way, shoppers might be able to find larger packs still on the shelves at smaller stores where inventory does not turn over as quickly. The dollar store may still have a better deal than the drugstore, grocery, or hardware store, so make a careful note of sizes and whether the product actually does the job for you.

Good luck.