Nothing lasts forever

That includes mediocre blogs, like this one. I've said from the beginning that I would never let this blog sit for weeks, months, or even years at a time — like so many others I've seen — without being updated with fresh content. I've never understood that: How does a blogger expect to attract a loyal readership and retain interest when those readers have no reason to visit regularly? More to the point, how does a blogger expect readers to even know when a new post is published, if it's only done irregularly and rarely? I vowed to shut down this blog long before that happened.

Those of you who visit this site regularly — and I'm thankful for each one of you, more than words can describe — probably notice that this is my first post in a week. Frankly, I've had an ambivalent attitude toward this blog since the beginning of the new year. I have no explanation for that, other than my perception that readership has declined recently and the content I've offered has seemed uninspiring, recycled, and generally lackluster at best. I see little value in maintaining a forum that fails to generate dialogue among readers — and certainly I do feel as though I've failed on that front as of late. My posts usually seem to miss the mark on one side or the other — either they're too intellectually deep and emotion-laden, or they're long on words but short on substance. I take full responsibility for both. I can't expect to generate dialogue among readers if the content doesn't facilitate it.

My decision, therefore, is to take a hiatus from this blog. It's too soon to make a determination on whether to shut it down entirely — I may at some point feel inspired again — but I do feel it's important to let everyone know that I plan to take a break, as opposed to simply letting the site grow stale. I obviously don't know how long the hiatus will be, but it will last until I feel as though I can again write content that's worth the time to read.

Again, I thank everyone who visits this site and leaves an occasional comment. My appreciation and best regards go to all of you.

Don't use age to patronize

Last summer, while visiting my parents' island summer home, my father and I stopped by a little museum in town and talked with the middle-aged woman (not much older than 50, if even that) who was running the place. I explained to her that I was on vacation from Seattle and that I had been coming to the island since I was an infant. She quipped that it looked like I still was one — apparently a very untactful way of saying that I seemed really young to her.

The woman almost certainly didn't mean to offend me, but if that's true, she failed. I was tempted to fire back an equally snide remark, but the island's culture of courtesy would have made such a response extremely unbecoming. So I bit my tongue.

Zooming forward to the present, I just read someone's online account of speaking to a group of current students at the high school she formerly attended. This person — whose Facebook profile puts her at 31 years old — recounted an instance in which one of the students asked her whether she had music to listen to while she was in the Peace Corps. She answered by asking the student whether he knew what a Walkman and casette tapes were. In a previous online posting, this person shared her perception of being "old" over the notion that she was a student in high school when some of these current students were born.

The older I get, the more I'm convinced that age is all relative. The aforementioned 31-year-old would still be considered a kid to someone of my parents' generation; yet to a person who has attained 80 years or older, 50 or 60 still sounds youthful, and 31 must sound positively infantile. Regrettably, this notion is almost always lost on those who would use their age to belittle those who are younger on that basis alone — like the woman at the museum on the island, or the woman speaking at her alma mater. They may think they've been endowed with special wisdom their juniors don't have by sheer virtue of the years they've lived. Or perhaps they're simply proud of their age. This is evident in those who repeatedly complain about or make reference to their elderly status: If they truly were embarrassed about it, they wouldn't mention it so often, would they?

Age is not a predictor of wisdom or intelligence. It is usually a predictor of life experience (which isn't the same thing as the former two), though not even necessarily that. A 55-year-old who has never been married may very well have less experience with romantic relationships than a 35-year-old who has already been married for a decade. A 65-year-old who has never left the United States probably has less experience with cultural diversity than a 25-year-old who has traveled all over the world.

The examples go on. They're why I tend to respond uncharitably toward those who ignorantly patronize people younger than themselves.

Get pharmaceuticals off the air

These days, it seems as though no industry has been left unfazed by the devastating consequences of the current economic meltdown — no industry, that is, except perhaps for pharmaceutical companies, which seem to be faring wonderfully if we consider the millions of dollars they can afford to spend on prime-time television advertising. Their marketing campaigns are effective, too: Every time I see one, my blood pressure rises exponentially, increasing the probability that I'll someday need prescription medication to keep it under control.

Allowing pharmaceuticals to pummel Americans with their relentless, ubiquitous, and unregulated advertising campaigns is a public health hazard. For starters, it creates a society of hypochondriacs. Some may recall a time in the old days when people would first consult with their physicians if they believed that something was wrong with their health. Now, one needn't even leave the couch to be overwhelmed by repeated suggestions of possible ailments that may have no basis in reality. But that doesn't matter to the drug companies, whose goal is to inundate television viewers with a laundry list of health problems that encourage them to entertain the notion — however absurd it might be — that they suffer from whatever condition the drug being advertised purports to treat. Undoubtedly, the frightening result is millions of Americans who request to be placed on prescriptions they don't need simply because they were brainwashed through relentless repetition to believe they do. Are there really doctors who would honor such a misguided request without first confirming the need for it? If so, that's a really scary thought. If not, such advertising is pointless anyway.

Perhaps even worse is the message these commercials send to millions of Americans who genuinely do need certain prescription drugs but can't afford them. Some of these ads advise viewers that if they are unable to afford the medication being advertised, the drug manufacturer "may be able to help." This line never fails to bring my blood to a boil. If pharmaceutical companies truly wanted to "help," they could start by yanking their commercials and reallocating the millions of dollars they spend on them toward making their products more affordable. Of course, that idea presupposes that these drug-makers care more about the consumer than they do about their profits. Fat chance.

Ideally, prescription commercials — made solely for the purpose of padding the pockets of drug manufacturers, arguably at the expense of public health and affordable care for those who really need it — would be banned from television in the same way tobacco products were. Speaking of padded pockets, however, that's precisely what these companies do for lawmakers on Capitol Hill, who would be the ones to pass regulations or restrictions on their marketing campaigns. It should therefore be unsurprising that no such proposals have ever gained traction. That's a shame, because the idea of watching an evening of television without any drug commercials makes me feel far better than any prescription ever could.

Illinois' new license plate

Thanks to my dad for sending this — sadly, it's not too far from the truth.

Super Bowl losers' apparel not wasted

This partnership not only assists poor children around the world by providing them with brand-new clothing that they would probably never ordinarily see, but it's also an eco-friendly solution in that it prevents a tremendous amount of waste by transferring otherwise-unusable clothing to a very worthy cause.

A long, painful road for Illinois

In some inexplicable way, I felt sorry for ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Thursday as he delivered his last-ditch argument to the Illinois Senate. There he stood, in the Senate chamber in Springfield, giving an impassioned plea while lawmakers sat silently, perhaps just counting down the hours and minutes before they dealt a fatal blow to his political life. When he concluded his speech, he was advised that he was welcome to stay and listen to the prosecution's closing argument. The ex-governor quietly declined and left the room unceremoniously. Literally and figuratively, no one stood by him. He knew as well as anyone else that his time in public office was done. That was perhaps the only grip on reality he had; in all other respects, the man was and is delusional.

Nevertheless, any sense of pity I felt was equally misguided, especially toward an individual who has willfully inflicted so much pain on my home state. Two short months ago, I was distinctly proud of being a native of the state that had not only produced the president who abolished slavery and held this nation together through a bitter civil war, but also most recently, the first African American ever to hold that office. Little did I know the ugly saga that was about to unfold and rudely extinguish the celebratory atmosphere in the Land of Lincoln. When it did, I joined millions of other Illinoisans in condemning Blagojevich's alleged crimes and calling for his immediate resignation.

And if the man had possessed even an ounce of personal integrity, he would have heeded that advice. He would have recognized the damage he would cause to our state by arrogantly clinging to power even as he faced federal criminal charges. Proclaiming one's innocence as a politician under fire is one story; acting in the best interests of the people who hired you to put them first — not yourself — is another entirely. On the latter, Blagojevich failed miserably and seemed to take pride in doing so. Instead of stepping aside to spare Illinois the trauma he knew it was about to face, the corrupt governor relished every minute he was in the spotlight — at one point, openly defying his colleagues who told him unequivocally not to appoint Obama's senatorial replacement, and at another, engaging on a media blitz while boycotting his own impeachment trial for the purpose of painting himself as a political martyr. Throughout that entire time, he did nothing to convince anyone that he wasn't guilty of every single charge leveled against him.

That's probably because his secretly recorded phone conversations — and even some of the interviews he did this past week — left little or no room for doubt. Yet Blagojevich continually cast himself as the victim and unabashedly exploited his position of authority and prominence as a pedestal from which to wage his twisted, self-righteous personal crusade. In so doing, he ignored the real victim — the people of Illinois, whose government was too busy dealing with a corrupt chief executive to tackle the catalog of problems that the state is currently facing.

Like so many others, I'm outraged and fatigued by the soap opera that has taken place in the past two months — and no less saddened by the tragic direction we've taken since that historic night in early November in Chicago. It's finally time to begin the healing process. There will be some immediate, tangible symbols of this, like the removal of $480,000 worth of tollway signs bearing the ex-governor's name. But it will mostly consist of less visible and more prolonged benchmarks. Perhaps chief among them will be the lessons that the citizens of Illinois — and Americans in general — learned from this mess about the brutal consequences of political arrogance and corruption. We can only hope.

Scenes of a brighter time

These, finally, are the last round of my hiking photos from last season. This set was taken in late October, before the snow hit, on a trail north of the town of Roslyn, Washington. (That's where they filmed the popular early-1990s television series "Northern Exposure," which was actually supposed to be set in Alaska. You can still visit the Roslyn Cafe, made famous by the opening credits of the program.)

Anyway, the hike, which was comparatively easy to the previous ones of the season, consisted of a relatively level jaunt through a gorgeous forest along a rushing river, ending at a peaceful, secluded lake. The fall colors from the few deciduous trees in the area were at their peak. Between that, the brilliant sunshine, and the crisp autumn temperature, this was a very memorable day trip.