Daniel B. Kline's Page

By Daniel B. Kline

In the last few weeks I read two Star Wars novels, a collection of essays by Laurie Notaro, a biography of Axl Rose, Carrie Fisher's latest memoir, a book about the stomach disorder I may or may not have as well as three non-fiction books by Ben Mezrich. During that time period I also managed to read a newspaper nearly every day, countless magazines and, yes, a variety of news found online.

For those of you in the younger generations who may be unfamiliar, novels are like a series of pretend Facebook posts strung together to tell a story. Imagine if what your friends had to say went on for longer than 140 characters and was actually compelling. I know that it's hard to compete with "having a bad day" as far as storytelling goes, but trust me, some of these novelists have really mastered the whole multiple sentence plus a story arc thing.

Though I'm teasing a little bit, I do fear that the Internet and its penchant for short, easy-to-digest information is slowly destroying our ability to read. If you can be vaguely informed (or at least not embarrassingly uninformed) by glancing at Google News then I fear most people won't dig much deeper.

Depth has been replaced by a superficial knowledge of everything. You may not write long letters to any of your old friends, but you know a sentence or two about what every person you have ever met does every day. The same logic holds for newspaper and book consumption. We won't read Andre Agassi's biography, but we will skim a few paragraphs posted online giving us the highlights (he took meth and wore a wig).

Without reading -- the kind of reading that involves sitting for long periods of time and looking at multiple pages, not simply scanning headlines -- our capacity for in-depth understanding disappears. Reading serves as the foundation for pretty much all knowledge. Reading develops our understanding of the world, enhances our vocabulary and generally gives us something to build other skills upon.

It's possible to learn without reading (reading a book about ice skating would probably not help you actually skate) but in most areas not being a good reader makes learning much harder. Reading also allows you to learn a lot of things quickly without actually experiencing them.

For example, I neither enjoy the music of Guns N' Roses nor have any particular interest in partnering with a bunch of guys who abuse heroin. Reading Axl Rose's biography, however, gave me an understanding of both. Perhaps that's not immediately useful information, but if I'm asked a question about the derivation of "Paradise City," or what happens when your heart stops from drug abuse, I now have an answer.

Reading does not come easily for some people, but the more you do the easier it gets. If we fail to give our children the ability to read (not just the technical ability, the actual acquired skill of doing it well) then we handicap them for the rest of their lives.

It's easy to pretend that the Internet has somehow made reading less important when all it has done is make those who don't read a little harder to pick out. The prevalence of really short stories and news items hasn't made these people any less uninformed or any smarter. Instead, it has just given the stupid enough superficial knowledge to hide amongst an ocean of similarly misguided folks – none of whom are likely to have read this far anyway..

Daniel B. Kline's work appears in over 100 papers weekly. When he is not writing Kline serves as general manager of Time Machine Hobby New England's largest hobby and toy store, www.timemachinehobby.com. He can be reached at dan@notastep.com or you can see his archive at DBKline.com or befriend him at facebook.com/dankline.

By Daniel B. Kline

As the email responses to my job posting came rolling in by the dozens, I searched in vain for just one that had a proper cover letter and resume. Instead, I found every manner of poorly written informal response along with the occasional generic cover letter full of nonsense words that in no way applied to the job I was attempting to fill.

My expectations for a seasonal retail job that pays poorly were not overly high. I hoped to interview a handful of people that responded with a brief cover letter that referred to at least some part of my detailed job posting. Along with the cover letter, I hoped to receive a resume even if the person had relatively little job experience.

Of the hundreds of responses I received not one person sent the proper combination. Nearly all of the responses were brief, informal notes along the lines of "I am interested in the job. Please call me if it is still available." This tells me that on a very large level our schools -- at least here in Connecticut -- have failed to prepare students for the job market.

I'm also pretty sure that at least on the lowest levels of the retail chain that any candidate that made even a reasonable effort would immediately stand out. You do not have to be a writer to prepare a proper cover letter -- one that refers to the job posting in question and contains no spelling mistakes or major grammatical errors.

Perhaps worse than the informal letters or the ones full of typos were the ones built around nonsense phrases like, "I hope to utilize my skills for the betterment of your company." That may sound like it's saying something, but a phrase like that contains no useful information.

Invariably these drivel-filled cover letters came paired with resumes that contained absurd objectives. "I want to obtain a position with your company so I can achieve my goals," or similar claptrap also says nothing. I'd prefer, "I have always liked toys and would enjoy working in a toy store." There's at least some honesty in that sentence and it suggests I might get an eager employee who would enjoy her job.

Ultimately, I selected a few people to interview based on geographic convenience. One person failed to show for her interview while another was only available to be interviewed on such a limited basis that it made me question whether he could actually work a demanding retail job.

The eventual victor got selected because she showed up on time for the interview, made an attempt at dressing appropriately and waited patiently while I finished up with a customer before speaking to her. Her cover letter had offered me nothing, but at least it was brief and avoided too many unnecessary big words.

She seems friendly, has some retail experience and had a good reason for wanting a full-time job that ends in January. I'm relatively confident in my selection and my staff seems to like her. That said, I remain appalled that not one person across the wide age range that applied for the position knows how to apply for a job.

Perhaps we don't have an unemployment problem in this country, maybe we have open jobs with no viable means to fill them. I'll be hiring some part-timers in the coming weeks and am expecting the email equivalent of "me want job" written in crayon to start showing up in my mailbox the second the ad goes live.

Daniel B. Kline's work appears in over 100 papers weekly. When he is not writing Kline serves as general manager of Time Machine Hobby New England's largest hobby and toy store, www.timemachinehobby.com. He can be reached at dan@notastep.com or you can see his archive at DBKline.com or befriend him at facebook.com/dankline.

By Daniel B. Kline

President Barack Obama deserves a Nobel Peace Prize only slightly more than my five-year-old son deserves the Best Screenplay Oscar. Neither has done anything particular to win those respective awards, but both theoretically have the potential to earn them at some future point.

Essentially, the Nobel committee gave Obama the prize because he seems like a nice fellow and he's not President George W. Bush. Our current president's big contribution to world peace appears to be that he picks up the phone when other countries call and he does not actively taunt our enemies.

Admittedly, that is an improvement over Bush, but not being a jingoistic jerk with an "invade first, ask questions later" policy hardly deserves a Nobel Peace prize. This would be like giving Miley Cyrus a lifetime achievement Grammy because she's better than the Jonas Brothers or awarding the World Series trophy to the Brewers for beating the Pirates in a regular season game.

Awards -- even pompous and preposterous ones like Nobel prizes -- get handed out for what you actually do, not what you might do. We give unearned awards to make people feel better at Little League banquets and Cub Scout dinners, not on the world stage. A president should not be rewarded for his potential, he instead should be judged by his actions and it remains to soon to tell about Obama.

Though there have been some embarrassing Nobel Peace Prize winners in the past (Yasser Arafat come to mind) the awarding of this one seems at best premature. Obama currently presides over two wars he has done little to end along with rising tensions with Iran. Our president seems like a fellow who wants peace whereas Bush seemed to seek out wars, but liking hockey does not make me a Stanley Cup champion.

Obama, of course, did nothing to seek out this award and one would have to imagine that he is a little bit embarassed by it. Declining a Nobel Prize because you have not yet earned it would probably create an international incident and, hopefully, the president will use this as motivation to live up to the honor he has already received.

It is somewhat encouraging that the world seems to want Obama to succeed in creating a kinder and gentler America. After years of everyone either hating us or being really scared of us, it's nice to see the possibility of at least some other countries partnering with us through affection and not because of our brute strength.

Barack Obama has the potential to be a coalition builder and a peacemaker. He can change the history of our nation and mankind. he just hasn't quite done so yet. Perhaps we should save the awards cermeony until after the actual victories and congratulate the man on furthering the cause of world peace when he has actually done that.

Daniel B. Kline's work appears in over 100 papers weekly. When he is not writing Kline serves as general manager of Time Machine Hobby New England's largest hobby and toy store, www.timemachinehobby.com. He can be reached at dan@notastep.com or you can see his archive at DBKline.com or befriend him at facebook.com/dankline.

By Daniel B. Kline

Putting my son on the bus for his first day of kindergarten caused a weird mix of pride and fear to swirl around my head. I was proud that he was going off on his own, achieving a tiny bit of freedom, and moving forward in life. The fear came from my having met my son and knowing that his unique mix of energy, curiosity and complete inability to follow directions may not endear him to his kindergarten teachers.

I also remember my own kindergarten experience including the first few weeks which I spent crying -- uncharacteristically homesick -- likely due to the fairly serious surgery I had undergone a few weeks before. Once I stopped blubbering, I began making friends who remain part of my world to this day. It was sitting with one of them recently that made me wonder which of the kids in my son's class would he still be sharing his life with 30 years later.

This did not come as an epiphany, it developed slowly as I sat a few weeks ago surrounded by long-time friends and virtual family holding one of my oldest friend's son on my lap. Lauren was not in my kindergarten class, but I did meet her that year beginning a relationship that would include a senior prom, dancing together at each others' weddings and her standing up as godmother for my child.

We were five when we met and now we were two 35 and 36 respectively; me with a five-year-old and her with a two-year-old. There remains an ease in our acquaintance, a familiarity that does not lessen because of time, distance or lack of communication.

She lives in Chicago with her husband, Patrick, while I live in Connecticut with my wife, Celine. The demands of children and work, as well the occasional need for sleep make it impossible to see each other or even speak as often as we would like. We spend most months letting email exchanges trial off, calls go unreturned and the best intentions go unfulfilled.

That makes time spent together especially precious and surprisingly conducive to sharing our deepest fears and confiding in each other. There are few people in your life you can not see face-to-face for years at a time then pick up a conversation as if you had seen each other the night before. My list of people like that numbers six and it seems unlikely to grow as the years move forward.

As we sat that day I shared with Lauren my fears about my son Joshua's impending first day of kindergarten. I wasn't the typical parent lamenting his child growing up, I was worried as to how my son's total lack of impulse control would play in classroom. Would he hit another student, or perhaps a teacher? How soon would I become a regular in the principal's office and how would I assure my wife that our son's troubles were not a reflection of her?

We walked the beach that day, pushing her son in a stroller, talking as we always had, as if we did this everyday. I'm not sure if we found any answers, but just sharing with someone who loves you without judging you lessened the weight on both our shoulders.

These moments are rare and I thought back to that day as I sat last week in the principal's office surrounded by the principal, the school psychologist, my wife and my son's teacher. Joshua would not have an easy go of kindergarten and neither would Celine and I. But, hopefully, 30 years from now, Joshua will have people to help him like I do who are always there even when they are not.

Daniel B. Kline's work appears in over 100 papers weekly. When he is not writing Kline serves as general manager of Time Machine Hobby New England's largest hobby and toy store, www.timemachinehobby.com. He can be reached at dan@notastep.com or you can see his archive at DBKline.com or befriend him at facebook.com/dankline.

By Daniel B. Kline

In an ideal world every American would have comprehensive health care. In that same ideal world everyone would also have a house, a car, money for vacations, an attractive spouse, well-behaved kids and a local sports team that wins a world championship every year. In this magical fantasy land, everyone would also have white teeth, good hair, a surprisingly accurate jump shot and a chance to meet with the president regularly just to share your opinions.

Here in the real world, we should not be focusing on creating an unattainable utopia. Instead, our president should be focusing on fixing the health care system for those who can actually afford coverage. While it would be wonderful to insure the uninsured, that seems like an absurdly ambitious (and ultimately impossible) goal when we can't even provide decent coverage for those who already pay.

My health insurance, which costs nearly $400 a month just for me (my wife and son have coverage through her company's plan), comes with high deductibles, random denials and an ever-increasing amount of hoops to jump through. Were I to get sick faceless insurance drones would play a significant role in deciding how I get treated, often overruling highly trained doctors.

I base this assumption on the fact for my relatively minor stomach ailment my insurance company has entirely dictated my course of treatment. They had a specific list of which medicines must be tried first -- a list which contradicted what my doctor wanted me to take.

If my insurer interferes for financial reasons over a relatively minor stomach medicine than I cannot imagine what the company might do were I to get a major disease. It seems obvious that before we start extending health coverage to those who cannot actually afford it, we must fix it for those who can.

It plays well to the populist left-wing audience to attempt to pass universal health care. Attacking the more manageable problem of making sure those who already have insurance get treated reasonably does not excite the Democratic base in the same way even though it is the more logical, more readily solvable problem.

President Obama likes to pretend that everyone can have insurance without the vast majority of people already insured paying more. Of course, he intends to tack on extra taxes for the people he consider rich, but us regular middle class folks won't feel a thing and all of our lightly more downtrodden friends will now have full coverage.

Essentially Obama wants everyone to believe that perhaps through the power of his undeniable charisma everyone can be insured and almost nobody will pay more. Unless doctors and hospitals start working for free (which they already essentially do with most Medicare payouts, sadly enough) than the tab for universal coverage will be enormous.

To make matters worse that tab will be paid by people like me who work hard to pay for fairly crummy coverage. It's hard to imagine that adding millions of nonpaying customers to the system will improve my care and, well, though you seem like nice people, at the end of the day, I'm mostly worried about me and mine.

While it would be nice for every American to have health care, we cannot provide it by further burdening those who can actually afford it. President Obama needs to stop playing Robin Hood and start solving real problems.

Fix health care the paying customers first and then see what we can do to make health coverage affordable for more people. That sentence won't win you an election, but it's practical, logical and, most importantly, achievable.

Daniel B. Kline's work appears in over 100 papers weekly. When he is not writing Kline serves as general manager of Time Machine Hobby New England's largest hobby and toy store, www.timemachinehobby.com. He can be reached at dan@notastep.com or you can see his archive at DBKline.com or befriend him at facebook.com/dankline.