Going Over the Fiscal Waterfall in a Pork Barrel

Well, it's nice to be back. For those who didn't know, Grainiums was on hiatus. And while this moment in a blog post seems a little early for a parenthetical aside, we're going to have one.

(Hiatus is a Latin word translated as being a gap or interruption in continuity. It is derived from the past participle "hiare," meaning "to gape." To gape is defined as "to stare wonderingly or stupidly, often with the mouth open.")

That pretty much sums up what I've been doing for the past several weeks. But I wiped away the drool oozing from the corners of my mouth and set myself back to the ol' grindstone. Looking back at all of the events that occurred during the hiatus, nothing screamed "stare stupidly" more than the government's handling of the country's financial woes.

The United States was facing a two-headed monster on January 1 - tax increases and budget cuts. Fortunately with a deadline in effect, it meant our legislative bodies would burn the midnight oil to come up with a solution. At least I assumed the government was burning a petroleum product because the price of gas went up during this period. Facing public backlash and battling through partisan devisiveness, our elected representatives, in the tried and true, American get-to-it attitude, got half the job done. They eliminated the tax increases. But what about the budget cuts? This is going to be a tough one for them as there are lots of marquee funding choices on the chopping block. Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, education. Hard to find things to cut from the budget, although it shouldn't be that difficult to at least find a starting point...

College humor - Punking a rattlesnake
with a fake squirrel.

The U.S. government gave two California academic institutions - San Diego State University, and the University of California, Davis - $325,000 to develop a robotic squirrel to help researchers at the schools study "the nuances between predator and prey" of the California ground squirrel and rattlesnakes. The robosquirrel, when placed in the proper environment and confronted by a real rattlesnake, is designed to wag its tail back and forth to simulate what a real squirrel would do in a similar situation.

(Spoiler Alert: That's all it was built to do.)

And that's all it did, because apparently that's what squirrels will do when threatened by a viper. Okay, that and it seems that real squirrels also have the speed and agility to dodge a rattlesnake strike, animated behavior that I guess doesn't quite fit in a $325K budget. So if the rattlesnake struck at the robotic squirrel, the chances are relatively high a bite would occur. However, the robosquirrel shares one other characteristic with a real squirrel besides a wagging tail: both have immunity to the effects of rattlesnake venom. This would be like me getting a government grant to buy you a bag of marshmallows to throw at me, but instead of me it's a cardboard cutout that looks like me. There's also no mouth, but there's a speaker where my mouth was so you can hear me warn you not to throw the marshmallows at me. And either a) you're so stupid you don't throw one, or b) you throw one and it hits the fake me because the fake me can't move, and it doesn't hurt.

The ground squirrel is not the only member of nature's crash-test dummy army. There is a robot lizard that does territorially-defensive push-ups, a robot female sage grouse that uses a spycam to collect data on male sage grouse's courtship behavior, and the fake cockroach soaked in pheromones to study cockroach peer pressure. Public funding for cockroaches...wearing musk.

I'm alright, nobody worry 'bout me.
Why you gotta give me a fight, why
don't you let me be.

Interesting ideas to kick around the campus coffee shop, but increasing our financial debt $325,000 for a study using a taxidermy squirrel that only wags its tail? By comparison, the gopher used in the movie Caddyshack - the one used to generate behavioral "nuances" between a rodent and a golf course groundskeeper - was also relatively cheap to build and operate, but at least that little fucker could dance...and to the tune of almost $40 million at the box office! So in essence, we don't need government funding directed toward post graduate work on rodents adding to our fiscal deficit. We need government funding directed toward film comedies with dancing rodents turning a profit! Watching a flash mob of dancing hamsters won't completely cure the country's debt woes, but it'll help us laugh while we pay it down.

SDSU defended the grant in part by pointing out the components to make the squirrel only cost a few hundred dollars. The rest of the $324,000 and change went to fund the 4 graduate students and 30 undergrad students participating in the project because, you know, we can't expect college students or their parents to pay for tuition, and hobbies aren't covered through student loans. Not that all scientific studies don't deserve government subsidies. I think discovering how diseases are transmitted between species is very important because that kind of knowledge has a practical application to humans. However, I've come across a few rattlers in my travels, and the last thing I think I'd do is "drop trou" and shake my ass hoping to keep them at bay.

And what of university officials and professors claims that a study of this nature has helped in understanding human behavior? Judging by public disbelief and outrage generated by their government funded shopping spree at Radio Shack...success!

Season's Greetings!

Happy Holidays!

See you in 2013!

Get Out and Vote!

A quick reminder to all citizens U.S. citizens legal U.S. citizens legal U.S. citizens who are registered voters:

It's a MAILBOX, not a BALLOT BOX. Stop stuffing it!

GET OUT AND VOTE SO I CAN FIND MY BILLS!

A Morning Cup of Coffee

(Ed. Note: What you're about to read is true. Okay, the part about me wanting a cup of coffee, and other people being there, and me waiting in line is really true and the rest truly occurred in my head while I was waiting. This is what happens when a granule brews in the filter too long.)

I was on the road, early in the morning, and wanted a cup of coffee. Actually, I needed to get off the highway because traffic was pissing me off. Okay, not traffic...the drivers causing the traffic. So, get off the road and get a cup of coffee. I stopped at a coffee shop. I won't divulge the name of the place because they aren't paying me to advertise for them. And the name really doesn't matter anyway because they're all the same. I parked my car, went inside, and got in a line that was just like the traffic I got out of - everyone creeping forward slowly with their faces locked onto their smartphone screens.

Behind me, a man in his mid-40's with a bluetooth device wedged in his ear is in a conversation with some other jackass standing in a crowd somewhere else talking to himself, too. The guy is going on about his golf game, and how much better it's gotten since he started taking lessons from a golf pro. He's hitting straighter, but as far, so his scores are still around where they were when he was slicing every other ball into oblivion. But he hopes the scores will start dropping soon so he can justify the lessons, which likely cost him as much as he was paying for replacement golf balls. The talk turns to cars and the new penis on wheels he's been test driving. He'd buy it but the dealer's hassling him over the financing, meaning his ex-wife owns his credit score and he can't secure a low enough interest rate to make the payments. I'm fighting the urge to turn around and start mimicking him like a seven-year-old, repeating everything he says just to annoy him because he's annoying me. Immature, sure, but he started it.

Over his shoulder, I see five guys on bicycles roll to a stop outside and unclip their feet from their pedals. They're all dressed in the same bike outfits like they're a road racing team. Their matching shirts have corporate logos all over them creating the pretense they are team sponsors, which is bullshit. The shirts were on sale at Sports Authority and one of the guys thought it'd look cool, so he bought five thus ensuring he'll still be on the "team." These guys talk the bike lifestyle, but they are phony from their padded-ass shorts to their fingerless gloves. Two of them can't even pronounce "Cinzano" correctly. They've been riding the two-lane roads in the foothill getting in the way of traffic since the asscrack of dawn, making commuters who have trouble passing even one of these idiots on a narrow road have to pass five. But these cyclists have the right to use the roads, and nothing's going to stop them as they cruise along in their little peloton, each one taking turns in the lead as they dream about being in "The Tour" or get to fulfill their Breaking Away fantasy.

From of the cost of your cup of 

coffee, this little girl gets 3 cents.

Not per cup of coffee, just for that

 one cup. Enjoy your sad cubicle.

One of the two ladies in front of me tells the other she's really happy that Jen-Gret is working this morning. Jen-Gret is the barista whose real name is Jennifer Gretchen. The names apparently weren't butch enough to go with her chosen lifestyle, so she chopped them up and bolted two parts together with a hyphen. Jen-Gret is working at this particular coffee house because they only use coffee beans from Central and South American countries that don't clear-cut rainforests for their plantations. Not that the 13-year-old girls slogging through the mud to pick the beans for next to nothing might be an issue. (Whoa, one noble cause at a time!) Jen-Gret's devotion to protecting this particular endangered habitat is displayed in the form of a shoulder-to-wrist sleeve of rainforest tattoos along her left arm, which goes great with the jungle growing from under her armpit. She's also working here because it's hard to find conventional employment with a triple-pierced eyebrow, a bullring in the nose, a tongue bolt with matching chipped tooth, and a stud between the lower lip and chin. Her natural fiber R.E.I. discard wardrobe is also limiting. But Jen-Gret is great at making specialty drinks, and she can cut a million designs into latte foam...palm trees, fern fronds, hearts. She's always been artistic, say her parents who still have the hand-shaped outline of the turkey she drew and colored in elementary school on the refrigerator. Yes, a reminder of their daughter's talent, as well as a reminder of the $35,000 a year for four years they spent on college, where that sociology professor got into their daughter's head that one could make $100,000 a year and pay into a tax-based system, or one could make $20,000 a year and draw from it.

In the seating area, a man of about 60 is holding court. He's reluctantly retired, telling everyone he could have stayed with the company longer but the guys in corporate, which he says like the "guys" are his good ol' buddies, gave him a retirement offer he couldn't pass up. The actual offer was called "We're downsizing, and you can either get laid off with a severance check and no benefits, or take an early pension." He spends his time managing his retirement portfolio by watching CNN and MSNBC financial programs, hypnotically watching the ticker scroll by, waiting for word that his Apple stock will split yet again. He hopes owning four shares is as exciting as the 2005 split when his one share turned into two shares. He talks about his Facebook I.P.O. buy, and yeah, he paid $35 a share, but he's confident it has potential and that it'll eventually double. He shares his opinions about the stock market ad nauseum to his group, who sit looking at him with the same blank stare his three cats give him when he talks to them. His friends humor him, smiling, nodding and wondering silently which of the two, the old man or the Facebook stock, will ever reach 70.

Yeah, the line's moving. Slowly. I'm next, but a woman of size is holding up progress because she can't decide on the cinnamon roll or the low-fat, reduced calorie oat bran muffin. After a a minute of hemming and hawing, she caves and sheepishly goes for the cinnamon roll with her often used "Oh, maybe I'll just treat myself today" default excuse.

Finally at the front, and being waited on by a very cute girl named Mariann. That's right...so cute she spells her name with an "i" instead of a "y" and dots the "i" with a hand-drawn ladybug. Sure, it looks more like a tick, but she's cute so she gets a pass. She's all perky and eager to take my order, but first she asks me if I want to try one of their cranberry-bran bars in the tray next to the register. They look like shit swept up from the floor and pressed together with rubber cement. While I'm sure they're delicious, Mariann's not that cute and needs some rejection in her life. "No, thanks. Just a large coffee," I tell her. She gets my coffee, sets it on the counter and says, "That's $2.40." Mariann's been handling debit, credit and gift cards, so when I hand her a $5 bill she stares at it blankly until she realizes there is such a thing as cash. Thankfully the register told her how much change to give me back because God knows how long it would have taken before the math skills portion of her G.E.D. test kicked in. She gave me two one dollar bills, paused, and then silently mouthed the math calculation to one quarter plus one nickel plus dime, dime, dime. She'll be fine; she's cute.

Heading out? Not on your life. There are two women chatting up in the middle of the aisle like there's nothing else going on around them. I'm certain at some point in the day either or both will do the same thing in a grocery store aisle, the sidewalk outside a school, or anywhere else a conversation exists that requires someone to excuse their way by/between/around. They move - no break in the stride of the converstation and, of course, no apology - and I make my way to the counter to get some sugar, which would have been quick except for the chemist taking up the entire counter searching for the right mix of sweetener and half-and-half or maybe whole milk or soy that'll make his $5 custom half-caf caramel mocha latte cure cancer. Not waiting, I reach around his lab coat for the sugar dispenser. That's right...bleached white processed cane sugar. The F.D.A. hasn't pulled it from consumption and I'm using it...if I can get it out of the container because it's all clumped together and...

I just wanted a cup of coffee.

Senseless Sensibility

Picture from Grainiums #1: Why a Blog.

See, it’s there! Right where I said it was!

In that big red circle! See it?
USE IT!!

Common sense is defined as "sound and prudent judgment based on simple perception of the situation or facts." It is a definition that is as subjective as the object it defines. It has to be, because common sense, in an objectively applied and substantive form, does not exist.

In a previous post, Words, Part 5 (August 29, 2012), I questioned the sense of school administrators and a public official in Prague, Oklahoma, for refusing to give the 2012 class valedictorian her diploma because in her speech she said "hell" in place of the school district-approved word "heck." One of the points I touched upon was the "rules are rules" mindset voiced by officials in their own defense. My response to that was, yes, rules are rules, but within the letter of the rule is the spirit of the rule. There aren't many rules that cover every circumstance affected by any particular rule, thus it's this in-between area when the concept of "common sense" should come into play. But it doesn't, because people are reluctant to use the gray matter that exists between their ears when encountering the gray matter that exists within the "black and white" of the rules.

Take the case of the 68-year-old Iowa man who was fired as a customer service representative by his employer, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, because he was convicted of operating a coin-changing machine by false means. What this man did was get caught using a cardboard cutout of a dime to operate a washing machine. For anyone wondering if coin-operated washing machines even accept dimes, they did back in 1963 when this crime occurred. 1963. Almost fifty years earlier. The man, 18 at the time, was caught, convicted and served two days in jail, which didn't preclude him from being hired by Wells Fargo. Fifty years later, Wells Fargo fired him - as all banks have similarly fired thousands of employees - because of a regulation that was put in place in the financial industry that "forbid the employment of anyone convicted of a crime involving dishonesty, breech of trust or money laundering."

The regulation, created in the aftermath of the financial meltdown that crippled the U.S. economy and designed to focus on executive-level employees who engaged in transactional crimes, has been applied across the board to all employees retroactive to their date of birth because the banks are afraid the FDIC will fine them for noncompliance by keeping them employed. The spokesperson for the American Bankers Association said that because of "public clamor for tighter regulation...the safest route is to fire the employee and let them pursue the FDIC waiver." The FDIC waiver process takes six to twelve months for approval. So this 68-year-old man loses his job for up to a year, loses his benefits and possibly his retirement, because no one had the common sense (a.k.a. balls) to step up and do a common sense thing like let the man stay employed and assign him non-transactional jobs until the waiver gets approved. Instead, they took the "safest route," meaning the decision made was not a sensible decision but one that covers an ass at the expense of someone else's ass because "that's the rule." But, hey, the banks used such great judgment deciding how best to manage the country's financial backbone, so why question how they use their judgment now?

Then there are the parents of a three-year-old deaf boy at a preschool in Grand Island, Nebraska, who became embroiled in a dispute with the school district's administrators because they claim the boy's sign language gesture for his name violates the district policy that encompasses "mimicking a weapon." The boy's name is Hunter, and the sign gesture he uses for his name is an actual, registered symbol with S.E.E. (Signing Exact English). In spite of that, the school is apparently afraid that someone will mistake a 3-year-old deaf boy's hand gesture as a lethal weapon and wants the parents to change the boy's sign language name. The parents don't seem to be inclined to do this and, to their credit, the community of Grand Island supports the family's decision.

Freedom of speechlessness

It's shameful to me that an adult or group of adults who are charged with overseeing an education system aren't mature enough, compassionate enough or, dare I say, educated enough, to comprehend how their decision not only emotionally impacts this child and his family, but also reflects poorly on the community they represent. That they can't differentiate between a deaf kid using his hands to speak his name vs. using his hands to pretend shoot someone leaves me speechless.

Understand, this isn't about rules or the need for rules. This is about the sensible application of rules. People seem to be less and less inclined to look at an exception to a rule and judge a sensible way to deal with it. Not the best way, a sensible way, because the best way isn't necessarily sensible. The desire has become to fall back on the easy answer - the rule - and take comfort believing one's absolved of any real responsibility for enforcing it even when knowing it's being wrongly applied. But as the official from Prague High School said, "...there's ways (sic) to change rules if you don't think they're right." Exactly. But it doesn't have to be a prolonged battle after the fact. It can start with sound and prudent judgment at the first point of having to enforce it.

I'd like to see the Iowa man gets his job back, and every person who passed the buck because they thought they were protected by the letter of the rule should get fired for doing unto others in the spirit of the golden rule.

As for the parents of Hunter, if they end up changing his name I hope they change it to Dick and teach him to drop his pants and wave his little pecker around every time he introduces himself...starting with every single shitbird Grand Island school administrator supporting the enforcement of the letter of the rule.

Words, Part 5: The Hell You Say

Blogger's note: "Words" is an ongoing feature in which I take a look at special qualities and misrepresentations of the English language, how much fun it is to play with its words, and why it reigns as one of the hardest languages to master.


An Oklahoma high school graduate has been denied her diploma for using the word "hell" during her commencement speech.

At Prague High School, you can’t say 

the word “hell,” but you can cheer 

your fucking heart out for the Devil.

In her 2012 Prague High School graduation speech, the young lady - the class valedictorian, who had a 4.0 grade point average - recounted her frustration at repeatedly facing the question as she neared graduation about what she wanted to do with her life. Her response: "How the hell do I know? I've changed my mind so many times." After the graduation ceremony, she went to pick up her diploma and was told she wasn't going to get it. The reason, according to the school district superintendent, was that she didn't present the speech as written and approved by the school. The draft of the speech she submitted to the school that was approved used the word "heck." Her use of the word "hell" instead was deemed "language that was inappropriate for a graduation exercise." Said the Prague city manager, "I don't think language like that should be used in school, and as society starts accepting stuff like that, it becomes your normal," adding, "...you gotta have rules, and there's ways to change rules if you don't think they're right."

Yeah, language rules. Those are important. Otherwise saying things like "gotta" and "there's ways" become "your normal."

Now anyone who has followed the topics in this blog, particularly the Words series, knows how I feel about the use of language. There shouldn't be a problem with any word as long as the content of what's said is in the proper context of being said and the user accepts responsability for saying it. Especially when it comes to profanity. And if the word "hell" qualifies as profanity in this day and age, it's bush league profanity at best. Located between "heck" and "fuck" on the progressive scale of interjections, "hell" is one of those words that allows you to push the vocabulary envelope while you're pushing the maturity envelope. It's just enough of an attention-getter to announce you're growing up, but not quite potty-mouth enough to get a bar of soap shoved down the back of your throat.

As for her speech, I didn't find anything particularly shocking in what the young lady said. Sure, she stepped away from her script, but it's not like she went Sarah Silverman-open mike on the crowd. All she did was replace one innocuous word with another. (Technically, she replaced two letters (c, k) of one word with one different letter (l) used twice (l, l), consecutively (ll), to form another word.) A student's commencement speech is supposed to be more than a regurgitation of yearbook memories and band room anecdotes. It's supposed to mark the final stage of the transition from the halls of the school's protective cocoon - can't say "womb" in Oklahoma schools - and, hopefully, nurtured by - nor can you say "after suckling at the teat of" - knowledge, children will emerge - "be reborn?" Nope - as adults ready to survive in the wilds of the world. Having sat through my share of graduation speeches, I can tell you that the best speeches were the ones that had some personality behind them, ones that were balanced with elements of seriousness and humor, with an occasional finger flick to the earlobe to keep your attention, you know, like a valedictorian saying "hell." Compared to the young lady's presentation, I'm sure the faculty speeches were akin to rubbing a brick back and forth against the forehead.

In my opinion, the school administration, the district superintendent and the city manager overreacted. Had they been paying attention they would have noticed through the light laughter and applause that nobody else cared. Not the audience. Not the student body. Just them. I understand the "rules are rules" concept, but I also understand there is the letter of a rule, and the spirit of a rule. This is not a case of a student who narrowly escaped attending a fifth year of high school spewing a publicly humiliating rant during the ceremony. This is an honor student who said something intelligent, articulate and socially acceptable - or at least acceptable outside Oklahoma. I'm sure a stern lecture with frowny faces expressing disappointment by the school administrators would have sufficed instead of them pulling the sticks out of their asses to hit her.

Now to be fair, it should be noted the school and district administrators aren't the only ones who used poor judgment. The young lady's father needs to be put in check, too, for citing the 1st Amendment in defense of his daughter. This isn't a freedom of speech issue, dad. She exercised that right when she edited her speech at the microphone. So stop waving the flag and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and your whole "young men putting their lives on the line to protect those rights" pandering to condemn what this really is, which is a lack of sensibility issue. Standing up for your kid doesn't always mean opening your mouth for them. She's not twelve, so give her advice if she asks for it, counsel her if she needs it, but otherwise stand there, shut up and let her do her thing. A 4.0 GPA doesn't include life experience, so let her get some.

The school administration's remedy was to request a formal, written apology from the young lady in exchange for her diploma, which she's refusing to do. And good for her. She did all of her required writing assignments during her four years at the school. The diploma is only symbolic, anyway. She should just take the frame she was going to put it in and put a copy of the news story inside it instead, then just go on with her life after telling the school administration to go to "heck."

Lil' Smokies

21 burned in walk over hot coals at Robbins event - Associated Press, Sat, July 21, 2012

And in other news, thirty-four people drowned at a lakeside Christian retreat when they attempted to walk on water...

Okay, people didn't really drown, but at least twenty-one people were reportedly treated for injuries as serious as second- and third-degree burns on the soles of their feet after walking across a ten-foot long bed of hot coals during a Tony Robbins motivational seminar in San Jose, California. While I'm compelled to wonder why that number didn't stop at one, there are enough documented instances of punch drinking, sweat lodging and prayer healing to remind me that follow-the-leadership is alive and well in the world, and that P. T. Barnum provided a better reference for human existence than Darwin did.

For anyone who hasn't watched television during some 24-hour period in the past thirty years, Tony Robbins is a self-help coach and motivational speaker who has made millions of dollars helped millions of people by preaching that the proper mental approach to life can bring personal success. To them, too.

This is the only way I want my little

piggies over a bed of hot coals.

The firewalk was part of the "Unleash the Power Within" motivational seminar through which one can experience "the opportunity to 'understand that there is absolutely nothing you can't overcome.'" It was not immediately clear if that included overcoming severe burns in order to unleash the power of walking.

Hot Fact: Human skin will begin to burn at approximately 130 degrees Fahrenheit. The reported temperature range of coals for the Robbins firewalk was 1,200 to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Math.

Firewalking is a stunt. It's not a miracle, and it's not supernatural. There are various scientific reasons why one wouldn't suffer burns or blisters while walking across a bed of hot coals. So put the cape away, Superman, 'cause it's not necessarily a high-risk activity. If done correctly, it can be done successfully and consistently. That's why it's an activity that a Mr. Robbins-type self-helper would employ in a motivational program as opposed to something really challenging like, oh, walking blindfolded across a four-lane highway. Or something even more difficult, like saying "No." What makes it a risk or a challenge to be triumphed is the belief it is just that. We are taught to fear fire, and overcoming that fear is a huge psychological boost. A boost that, say, someone who wants to guide you to the next price level would use because now you believe they can further help you.

I have no doubt the mind has the ability to control pain, but no state of mind can prevent the physical properties of an outside source (intense heat) from causing damage to your body (burned flesh). There are only two parts of one's mental state that is tapped for this or any other risky exercise that opposes conventional wisdom: believing that it can be done, and making the decision to do it. Nothing more, nothing less. And neither of those is immune to failure.

In Robbins' defense, his organization claims to have been providing this experience for more than thirty years and takes precautions to "ensure this event is always done in the safest way possible." Those precautions include having medical staff at the ready and providing warnings to participants "they might get burns or blisters." There was no mention if liability release waivers were signed by participants prior to attempting this stunt, so I'm going to go out on a burning limb and assume they were so potential litigation against the organization could also be handled in the safest way possible.

But even with assurances by organizations that these stunts, these tests of faith, such as walking on hot coals, can be safe by simply employing the proper state of mind, I have to question the state of mind of people thinking it's okay to provide a risk to others and then shrug off an injury when it occurs by saying, "Hey, we didn't make them do it." Yes, you did. You and your program got a notion into their heads - motivated them - to make them believe they could face whatever challenge you put before them by equating not doing it with failure. So when this activity - which is touted as a metaphor for succeeding in life - fails, guess what's reinforced?

I've seen video of Mr. Robbins clearly stating during his performance that walking on fire is not the goal of the seminar, that it's only presented as a metaphor to demonstrate overcoming life's challenges. But some people attending the seminar apparently aren't getting that message, as noted by the quotes below:

           "The purpose of the event is to get your focus and your attention
             away from that (potential for injury) and look into the power within
             yourself and focus on just walking on the fire."
 
           "I did it before, didn't get into the right state and got burned. I knew I
            wasn't at my peak state. I didn't take it as serious."

           "...after crossing the coals while chanting (my) mantra of  'Cool moss,'
            (I) felt powerful."

Really, Mr. Cool moss-man? Let's see how powerful your "more money" mantra makes you during your next employee evaluation at work, okay? If Robbins' message didn't get across to these people that no focus, no state of mind, no mantra will protect them from getting burned, what other "life changing" messages were missed during the seminar? How about the message that by putting the right precautions in place (footwear), you minimize the perceived risks you face in life (hurting your feet) and develop the confidence to make decisions (putting on said footwear) that help you achieve success (crossing a fire pit)? Anybody get that one?

Mr. Robbins and his kind probably do a great service to those who need to understand they aren't alone in their fears. But these professional messengers should be able to communicate to their followers that they have the ability to step forward, confront the challenges in their lives, and become successful without the need to go circus-sideshow and have a person risk injury crossing a bed of hot coals barefoot to understand this.

Balloons = Happiness

Presenting the Grainiums (relatively) Safe Life Metaphor Challenge: Get a balloon. Start blowing it up. Keep blowing it up until you worry about it popping in your face. Do you feel tension build as the balloon gets bigger? Keep blowing. And the heightening anxiety with each breath as you wonder when it will pop? Keep blowing! Afraid it will hurt when it pops? Keep blowing!! Do you want to stop? NO!! BLOW!!

Did it scare the shit out of you when it finally popped? Are you still breathing? Then you aren't dead, you weenie, so go get another balloon and start blowing it up.

The point of the metaphor is this: As long as you're breathing, you still have the ability to affect change in your life and the opportunity to try again when things in your life pop.

And you get a balloon.