While on a business trip to CA, I introduced several people to Geocaching. At one point I headed out to Geocache with some free time we had. I had only prepared for finding microcaches. Microcaches are generally small containers that hide in the landscape and contain only a small slip of paper to sign. In this case, however, I happened across an actual cache box. Cache boxes give geocachers the added bonus of trading an item. The item you put in the box should be of equal or greater value of the trinket you take out. As a bonus, it should represent something about your character and/or augment the theme of the geocache. I pulled out a trinket then looked over the possessions in my arsenal to trade. Other than my ID, credit card and pen I had a Scooby-Doo band-aid. “Cool enough” I thought (trying to convince myself that this was an even trade… which is wasn’t).

Coworkers teased, and I kept saying “but it was a cool bandaid” (again trying to rationalize the bad trade).

A week later, while I was home working, my wife and kids went geocaching in Angelfire, NM and came across what promised to be a big cache. When they opened the box it was filled with business cards and bandages! They were all so disappointed. I then told my kids about what I did in CA to which my eldest said (without any prompting) “at least you left a cool bandaid. These weren’t like that. They were boring.”

Nevertheless, I vowed never to leave something like a bandaid in a Geocache again. And certainly wouldn’t leave a business card. (What type of jerk does that?! If I find your business card in a cache, I’ll call you to find out!!!)

Samantha Bell, Joe Stack’s daughter in Norway, made a comment to Good Morning America stating that she considered her dad a hero because he acted out in a way to make others stand and take notice of a problem with our government that causes a state of exasperation to so many. She also sent out her condolences to the family of the one death victim and the others injured, stating that she didn’t condone her dad’s method. Sources:Huffington Post and abcnews.com

I wonder how we would treat George Washington, Patrick Henry, Paul Revere, Samuel Adams and other founding figures under the same situation. After all, they promoted the same types of attack at the Boston Tea Party – and afterwords, the British exercised a stronger government against the colonies. Those directly involved with these violent acts of insurrection were called cowards, traitors, rebels, among other choice words of their time.

You can read the cliff-notes version at the Boston Tea Party Timeline website but long story short, these people who fought and won the liberties and freedoms we enjoy today were nothing short of terrorists and wing-nuts by today’s definition. Most of their battle was through talks and negotiations, but when it came down to a government that didn’t care to listen to the people it was supposed to be protecting, revolutionary war became the final answer.

The main difference between then and now is that the Government in dispute is local where we can walk into a congressman’s office and have some hope of representation. Where I think most grievance lies is in the non-representation that the generations before us allowed. The six pages that made up the Constitution – the framework of our nation – has been usurped by thousands of pages of trite dog-eared laws that benefit certain individuals over the general citizens. There is also a great unrest and clash between cultures within the borders where liberal vs. conservative morals are the issues at heart rather than expansive vs. localized political powers. These differences make it difficult to both justify and to condemn the nature of injustice in the actions of Joe and the government he was at odds with.

Most people who defend Joe explain that Joe Stack isn’t any different from a Colonist in the 18th century who, enraged at the taxation, coercive acts and unjust courts decided that rather than subject himself to another year of anguish would take his meager unsubstantial life and make a smoke signal to others with it.

Most people who condemn Joe have the same western mentality that anyone who deliberately crashes a plane into a building is a nut-case and a coward. I guess they haven’t studied Eastern culture – particularly of Samurais – nor of the mentality of kamikaze pilots in WWII. Maybe they slept through the lecture on Pearl Harbor – who knows. But a single drastic event makes a louder statement, and a spokesman, no matter how depraved before, becomes instantly recognized.

I’m getting very tired of hearing people call him a coward merely on the basis that he committed suicide or that he incidentally killed someone else in the process. His final act of unrest had a motive beyond escapism which leads me to believe he died for something he believed in. It doesn’t matter what your faith is, if you die for something you believe, even if it’s the wrong thing to believe in, it isn’t mere cowardice – it’s something else. Nobody seems to call the nearly 1000 “kool-aid” suicides under the watch of Rev. James Warren Jones acts of cowardice. Of course, that doesn’t make any of it right.

I’ll add, however, that as affective the immediate results were, Joe’s airplane crash into the IRS was neither creative nor productive and his message has gotten lost amongst the thousands of retweets that dismiss his motives entirely (as a coward). He would have served America much better in prison next to Irwin Schiff, in a twist of irony that would have him living off of the same tax dollars he so despised paying.

For what it’s worth, Irwin Schiff is in prison for denying Uncle Sam the satisfaction of taxing him. He’s sentenced to 12.5 years for this federal crime while the average sentence for a repeat child rapist is only 7. This is the type of injustice that drove Joe Stack crazy.

In 2006, Folgers made what I consider to be one of the best commercials of all time. It was originally going to be featured during the Superbowl but rumor has it that upper management felt the commercial too annoyingly happy to do well. After all, the point of the commercial was that joyous morning sunshine is so intolerable that only through the consumption of Folgers coffee might someone bear it. Hence the campaign slogan “Tolerate Mornings.”

The commercial was met with mixed criticism from viewers. Some found the happy golden dancing people and their intentionally obnoxious singing so annoying that they associated the Folgers brand with that annoyance rather than the intended way to get around it. Others met the commercial with optimism and found the song humorous and memorable. Each chorus was met with an increase of volume and the commercial song even featured a bridge with a rising key-change: both musical qualities emphasize the rising sun rays getting stronger and more invasive. It’s a beautiful example of music-psychology.

As for the video, imagine Ned Flanders dancing around, playing the kazoo in a blond wig, basking in morning sunlight as the Sun’s rays force through the curtains of Homer’s window. It’s quite frankly what every parent with young children have to face on a daily basis.

Sadly, the http://toleratemornings.com/ website and all its goodness is no more, and it doesn’t ever last on YouTube for more than a few months before being removed. I think Folgers insistence of wiping the commercial from existence on all the video boards shows some backward thinking. After all, this is a commercial that they payed television stations to air and these fans are posting it up on the internet for people to watch without Folgers having to pay another dime. It’s a good commercial and they should have made more. Maybe showing the ramifications of a dry dessert that can be overcome by the dark brown richness from a hot cup of Folgers coffee.

Well… here are the lyrics to the best of my knowledge:

[Think Jimmy Durante]
Hah cha cha chahhh
Hah cha cha chahhh

Hello World, we’re shining so bright.
A new day’s here, it’s really dynamite.
Feel the love. Savor the door.
There’s a rainbow for each girl and boy.

On this [clap clap] happy morning! (Rise and shine!)
[clap clap] happy morning! (We’re doin’ fine!)
Get up, get out of bed. You can sleep when you are dead.

Partied hard; stayed up real late.
It’s time for work and you can hardly wait.
Scrub-a-dub-dub. Doodily-doo.
Spread the sunshine inside of you.

‘Cause it’s a [clap clap] happy morning! (Happy day!)
[clap clap] happy morning! (It’s nice today!)
Wake up you sleepy head. You can sleep when you are dead …

You can sleep when you are … [very bad Yamaha recorder instrumental]

La la la laaa
La la la laaa

[key change - rises like the sun]

Chahhhhh! Happy morning. (Rise and shine!)
Happy morning. (It’s wake-up time!)
Wake up you sleepy head, you can sleep when you are …
[clap clap]
Happy morning. (Happy day!)
Happy morning. (Feel right today!)
Wake up you sleepy head … [fade]

I enjoyed the song so much that I made it into a ringtone (or more appropriately, a wake-up alarm on my iPhone). The audio had to be stripped out of the commercial then carefully amplified and cut to produce the result. Audacity was used for the editing. I can’t remember what was used to pull the audio out of the video file.

Happy Morning Short Edit.m4r for the iPhone.

happy_morning_short_edit.mp3 for other devices.