the Hydrogen Jukebox

2011-08-10T20:45:00.000-07:00

Baselines for
Bioethics

Imagine that you are running for your life.

Your body is trembling with adrenaline, your heart is thudding, panic-stricken, and your breath comes in hot, quick gulps. Suddenly your pursuer sinks sharp hooks into your flesh, bringing you up short. You are picked up and dashed to the ground, breaking your back. As you writhe helplessly, your assailant begins to rip chunks out of your body. Death cannot come soon enough.

Is this a scene from a horrific slasher movie? No, this is the daily experience of prey in “Nature, red in tooth and claw” as carnivores pursue their meal. When extremists among promoters of vegetarianism declare that “Meat is Murder!” we would do well to remember the natural background against which their arguments are made.

There are well over a million carnivorous species on our world, more if you include omnivores who eat both meat and vegetation. By their teeth and their alimentary tract will you know them. We ourselves are omnivores, eating venison as naturally as we do tubers and leaves. We do not need to eat meat, of course; but it is generally a richer source of protein than is easily found in the vegetable kingdom.

What about the ethical issues, though? If we are so superior to other species, aren’t we obligated to express ourselves in a kinder, gentler, more humane manner? Unfortunately, much of our “superiority” is just an expression of being one of the top predators in the food chain. Our self-reflective intelligence is only a very recent development in our evolution, and to argue that we are free of a few million years of instinctual behaviors is anything but self-reflective.

We have generally decided that one of the ideals of civilization is to minimize pain, suffering, and death, although we tend to be self-serving as to when and toward whom we apply this ethic. Just a surely as do our chimpanzee cousins and our domestic feline companions, we sometime enjoy cruelty as if it is an entertaining game, justified largely because tormenting other animals – including our own species – is simply something that we can do. Additionally, it serves as a signal to others: Beware! We can do this to you, too!

One of the primary reasons that we have domesticated animals is simply so that we don’t have to chase after them. They’re in a supervised pasture, a coop, a barn. They are protected from other predators until we decide that it is time to use them for their labor or kill them for our food. I would argue that this is not automatically any crueler than their natural, untamed lives would be. How we treat them during that captivity, and how they meet their end, however, can be.

There are good reasons to minimize, if not eliminate, meat as part of our diet. Factory-style meat production certainly presents an ethical challenge: although it provides a cheap and easy assembly-line of meats, it depends on putting the animals in deliberately painful and unhealthy conditions and using medications and hormones to keep them alive and make them extra-productive. When we eat meats derived from this process some of these chemicals build up in our bodies, adding to the witch's brew of absorbed pollutants that may destabilize our own health. And, speaking of pollution, the lakes of animal waste from this sort of livestock productions present festering bodies of danger to the public health.

Also from the health perspective, an easily available supply of meats can provide too much of a tasty thing, ingesting excess calories and saturating ourselves in fats and related circulatory-clogging organics.

Domesticated meat-production is also a rather inefficient way to produce this choice protein. It requires up to 16 pounds of vegetable protein to produce one pound of beef and 3 to 6 to make one pound of fowl; 3 to 15 pounds of water to produce the same; and 78 calories of fossil fuel to produce on pound of beef, 35 calories for one pound of pork, and 22 calories for one pound of poultry. There is more protein-laden vegetative food to go around than there is of meats.

There is also the question as to just how primitive and predatory we personally wish to be. Disregarding "animal rights activists," most people accept the seasonal rituals of hunters who exercise observational patience, go for "quick, clean kills," and eat their quarry, but disdain those who hunt for sport or trophy. The personal administration of death-dealing can change one's perspective; we have recently heard how Facebook pioneer Mark Zuckerberg is experimenting with only eating meat that he has personally killed. I suspect that if we all had to live with such constraints our meat consumption would plummet. Could I kill a fish or a fowl? Probably with not too much difficulty if I were initially chaperoned in doing so. But a mammal like a cow, goat, deer, or pig? You mean, a member of the same Class to which we belong, mammalia? Not likely unless it was a survival scenario.

There are science-fiction procedures being developed today to grow meat without having to kill a living animal that would be more environmentally-benign and potentially healthier if the nutrients could be adjusted to add vitamins and reduce fats and glycerides. While some people might call this gross, it is much less so than slicing the throats and spilling the blood of a conscious animal before hacking its corpse apart; I would order a pound and a half of vat-grown fillet without batting an eye before touring a typical slaughter house.

Meat is tasty, and there is nothing unnatural about eating it. It may be a good decision to not eat it, or al least much less than we do. But for the nonce, I am at the top of the Food Chain; someday in the next forty years I expect that I will be at the bottom, food for the bugs and worms and microbes. I don't begrudge them their meal; so I will choose that upon which I myself dine, in full awareness of my choices.

Bon Appétit

2011-08-03T18:32:00.000-07:00

Advance Directives

Eleven years ago an idiot doctor correctly diagnosed me with Lyme disease but incorrectly treated it. As a result, the spirochetes ate a piece of my heart, and I now require a battery and a microchip to help it keep pace. Without this device I am conscious, but not much good beyond that, as weak as a kitten. Thank Ifni for modern medical technologies!

I have also undergone a number of medical procedures in the last several years including an appendectomy, hernia repair, and pacemaker replacement, and one of the newer anesthetics that has been used functions rather like a light switch; you’re conscious, then you’re not, then you are once again, with no sensation of transition and never noticing that you vanished for the last hour.

The recent deaths of several people I've known and my advancing age got me to thinking about mortality. I don’t believe in a hereafter, and the contemplation of Death used to give me the willies. However, these medication experiences have alleviated that anxiety. If the “on” switch is never flipped after having been turned “off,” well, oblivion is not half bad. Don’t Fear the Reaper.

Ah, but the process of dying is a whole different issue. Tubes, wires, indignities, fear and pain; these are not so pleasant to contemplate. Falling asleep in an easy chair after a nice glass of wine and just never waking up would be fine. But we are not given a choice, are we? In fact, even in civilized circumstances, we are not allowed a choice. There are few places where voluntary euthanasia is permitted. There is supposedly something noble about terminal suffering.

Suppose I am in my end game and circling the drain; will my pacemaker delay my departure and prolong the agony? Do I get to point to that device in my chest and say “Turn it off, Doc!” if that will hasten my death? Do I need to document this with Advance Directives? I suppose I’d best do so and not leave it to chance, but it seems ludicrous that I might need to do this. If it is my life, why can’t it be my death as well?

I suspect that as do many things, it is something that discomforts others and is given a fig-leaf of cover by religious sensibilities. No, it’s not really my life, it belongs to a Deity. Never mind that I consider that superstition. One must jump through hoops to opt out of the traditional systems and beliefs.

One only need google Karen Ann Quinlan and Terry Schiavo to recognize that the real thing to fear is other people's beliefs. Be prepared, because there will always be someone who thinks that they are deputized to act in what they decide is your best interest. Be on guard, and lay your plans somewhat beyond a simple retirement. You may be reluctant now, but you may be powerless then.

2010-11-16T21:54:00.000-08:00

A Serious Question Regarding Social Programs

for Small-Government Conservatives

Let me immediately identify myself as a sociopolitical Progressive, although do I try to be pragmatic about it. I believe that there should be various kinds and levels of “social safety nets” available to all people, recognize that the economic investment necessary to provide them is expensive, and yes, it requires a “redistribution of wealth” just as surely as does providing for “the common defense.”

Conservatives seem alright with that when it comes to maintaining overwhelming military might, but less so when it provides for social programs. They often give the impression that they believe these public services are being given to those who are for whatever reason, undeserving. When it comes to those less worthy, well, “It’s my money, and the government has no right to it without my express consent!” In addition, “The Government is inept, and I can better handle my money to provide for myself and my family!”

I agree that remedying waste, uncovering fraud, and maintaining a reasonable degree of efficiency are eternal battles when it comes to any bureaucratic functions, especially government. But government, in my perspective, is less about breaking even than it is about providing services and marshaling efforts that can only be achieved collectively.

I believe that cooperation is every bit as important as is competition in a healthy society despite the latter value being more heavily promoted. I believe in universal healthcare, although I recognize that the sky cannot be the limit – but that’s another discussion! I believe that in any solvent society healthcare is a human right, not a privilege, meaning that if an individual or other association cannot obtain it through their own reasonable efforts, it is the government’s duty to insure that it is accessible. If it is instead a privilege, a humane conservative – there are many such - may want to make legal and economic adjustments and offer incentives to maximize an individual’s opportunity to obtain healthcare, but ultimately, it is solely up to the individual to succeed or fail in that regard. Voluntary charities may provide some relief, but assistance is not required.

For the model to which I subscribe to be functional, everyone must participate otherwise we need to pick up the cost for “freeloaders” who could have contributed but did not. If you have no insurance, and you cannot afford private pay, clinics and hospitals are required to give you service nonetheless, and I agree that this is the maximally humane thing to do. But let’s just say that the financial viability of my preferred system is my problem, and consider you, the conservative individualist, who wants no part of it. Suppose I acknowledge our differences of opinion and of preference and agree that you may “opt out” of participation in such a network. All you have to do is foreswear utilization of its benefits.

Perhaps you have obtained employment that provides a good healthcare benefit; that’s excellent, and congratulations! Maybe you have made smart investments, receive regular dividends, and your family is healthy, and you can pay sufficient premiums for a private insurance plan, or have wealth enough to write out a check directly to your doctor, clinic, or hospital. Everybody’s happy, everybody is taken care of.

But you certainly know that there are reversals of fortune. No one is buying buggy-whips anymore and your company shuts down. A line of bad speculation distorts the stock market and your portfolio is now worth pennies. Your spouse contracts a disease that is expensive to treat, or you give birth to a child with a congenital defect. What do we do now? Humanity says that we take care of you regardless of your ability to pay; but you signed a waiver that you would not use public medical resources.

What do we do? Do you agree that, life is uncertain, you made your choice and “them’s the breaks,” and you, your child, or spouse should be turned away from lifesaving services and be allowed to perhaps die, comfortably or not? Really?

That is the way of life in nature, certainly, and in less complex societies. The strong, healthy, and wealthy dominate, and the rest… are less relevant.

This controversy is of course also germane to our other great socialized program, Social Security. Grandpa wasn’t clever enough, or didn’t plan ahead sufficiently for him and Gram, Dad died early, and Mom is living with us and we’re barely getting by. It was nice knowing you, Gramp, say hi to St. Pete, willya?

Sure I’m painting a caricature here to draw out the point. What do we do? If you listen to some over-the-top bombast, “Obamacare” is the most vile and unmitigated evil that has ever been visited upon the world, maybe worse than the Holocaust. Well, what’s your alternative? Tort reform and a $2000.- medical allowance are going to solve all of the problems of rising healthcare costs, of pre-existing conditions, of chronic catastrophic illness, and of access to care? Capitalism is the greatest good, and Government is the worst evil? Do you really believe that?

But I'd settle for people staking out a position so we know what we're arguing over: is it right, or a privilege? Let’s take it from there.

2010-11-13T15:46:00.000-08:00

REGARDING OPPRESSED CHRISTIANS:
MY LETTER TO THE EDITOR

There is something ludicrous about a privileged majority claiming discrimination, but certain American Christians love to play the victim card, complaining that their rights and traditions are being suppressed in favor of some suspect minority. Ms. H.’s November 9th letter to the editor is a recent example. She resurrects the nonsense regarding the so-called 9/11 Victory Mosque in New York and accuses the Obama White House of promoting a supposed War on Christmas, concluding that her "right" to her beliefs is being attacked.

I know of no movement to close churches, prevent their construction, or determine where they may be built; see no effort to ban Bibles, remove them from libraries, or create media circuses by burning them; there is no law preventing full-Gospel radio or TV from preaching "the Word" and soliciting tax-free contributions while doing so; Christians are still free to deposit pamphlets on my windshield or harangue me on the street about going to Hell because I hold the wrong beliefs; no one is trying to legislate who may or may not marry whom in their own denomination or as a civil matter; and no one is preventing them from displaying a crèche and a sign proclaiming "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" on their own private property.

They seem to think that this is their very own "Christian Nation" and that they should therefore receive special privileges including government assistance in promoting their faith with (carefully worded) prayers in schools, religious monuments and holiday displays on public grounds, their mottos emblazoned on our currency and courthouse walls, and their prayers opening government assemblies. They expect laws to enforce their particular beliefs regarding marital relationships, reproduction, and end-of-life decisions, and to allow them some sort of "right to discriminate" in housing or employment against those not of their creed because non-Christian Americans are apparently second-class citizens.

Some of their feelings are hurt by some people questioning their beliefs or some artists expressing their opinions of their faith in sometime crude terms. I certainly agree that we have become an impolite society, but you would think that they were about to be fed to the lions from their shrill outrage! How dare a Christian be mocked in their own nation! As for the President not promoting a Christian Christmas, perish forbid there is ever a Jewish or (horrors!) atheist occupant of the White House! They refuse to acknowledge that we are a pluralistic, multicultural, secular society and that most of the changes in our holiday expressions are business-driven, not part of any nefarious social or governmental plot.

It is high time that these insular and arrogant Christians grow up and recognize that this country belongs to all of us and that they have to learn to share. You get no more rights than do other beliefs, and they get no less than you.

2010-03-29T17:17:00.000-07:00

Across the Atlantic

I took three years of German back in High School forty years ago. I was never very fluent, and never really had any opportunity to use it except wihen one friend and I went out drinking, and later as a private communication between my wife and me when we didn't want our child to understand us.

I was interested in the German culture not because of the military history, but because of their history of advancement of the physical and social sciences. More recently, my interest in the Roman Empire identified their limits of Western expansion on the European continent as Koln. I had never traveled to Europe, though; there is so much to see in North America alone including exotic Hawaii. Yet I now write this seven miles above the mid-Atlantic. As do so many things, it began with beer.

The Artificer and I were hoisting a few and he mentioned that it had been a long time since he had seen his aunt who lived West of Munich and will be 97 jahren alt. Said I, who has been saving his pennies, 'well if you want a traveling companion, here I am!' So we are cruising at 584 mph at 32000 feet on eine Reise zu Deutschland. I may speak like a hick, but I'll get by and will improve. I will expand my horizons.

And, I will be blissfully absent from work. O Brave New World and great Aluminum Birds!

Oh, and I understand that the Germans know a few things about beer, too.

Tschuss...

(Sent from an Internet-enabled zimmer in Germany 5 days later!!)

2010-03-02T20:20:00.000-08:00

Camping in the Great Indoors

I didn’t expect to spend my 57th birthday roughing it; the plan was to go to work as usual and finish up a few critical month-end tasks, go out to a nice Italian dinner – free! with proof of your birth-date – and then claim the new camera my wife was getting me for my upcoming Germanic Adventure. Fate had other plans, precipitated by eight inches of heavy, wet snow that resulted in a chain of events including a power outage of 63 hours duration, and a visit to the local Emergency Room so that my wife could obtain three staples in her scalp. Happy Birthday to me!

It was snowing steadily as predicted by NOAA.gov (that socialist meteorological agency) as I prepared for bed at 1 a.m., when a deep “BOOM!” echoed from up the road and the lights flickered and went out. Oh well, life in the country does include some inconveniences, but we have plenty of long-lasting LED lights, and a low fire in the woodstove moderated the house’s temperature. Wife (a teacher) and Child will be off from school today I grumped as I settled under the covers and slid into the Realm of Dreams.

Morning dawned, and indeed, a light wet mist still drifted down to earth, and my family, having woken to hear the snow-closings on the radio, was back at their slumber. The power remained out after seven hours. They had thrown a few logs of our almost completely depleted wood supply on the fire, and I warmed a pan of water for tea on its surface. Just like the morning camp fire! I consumed a banana – mmm, potassium! - and dressed to start the snow blower, clear the (lengthy) driveway, and prepare for a somewhat belated work day. My first indication of trouble was the labour necessary to clear the sidewalk: the snow was heavy, and the strain quickly told on my lumbar. As I stood panting in front of the garage door I surveyed bushes crushed to the ground, branches broken off of trees, sagging utility wires, and in a little bit, my wife would be out to note that part of our magnolia tree had broken off as well. This was a Winter that was going out with a vengeance. Regardless, I was called upon to respond to the challenge.

Dragging the mighty machine on to the driveway, I opened the choke, pushed the primer, and yanked the cord. Again. And again. And again. This is labeled an “Easy-Start” device since it had an electric starter… but of course, we had no electricity. Prime and pull. Pull! Pull! And it caught!! Oh, frabjous day! But I had to pause to catch my breath before proceeding. Pant. Pant. Then, engage the auger! Engage the throttle! And… the wheels spun in place. The composition of the snow was such that the rotating wheels turned the matter to slush of a consistence that filled the tire treads, and all they could do was to spin. If I only had tire-chains -- ! Oh, if. What I wound up doing was physically shoving this weighty appliance up the drive, wiggle-waggling it to fill the scoop with snow, until I broke through the slushy wall that the Town plows erected between the road and the driveway. Then, I could make a return sweep, taking only a half-scoop so that one tire could gain traction on the previously-cleared trail. So I continued for half a dozen passes, until the wife came to relieve me.

Relinquishing my efforts I set about heating a kettle of water on the wood stove’s surface so that I might sponge away the accumulated stink before setting off to my place of employ. Unfortunately, since this was the very last of the fire wood, it was not terribly dry and produced only low heat. But, aha! Our barbeque grill has a side-burner for heating a pot of corn or such, and the propane tank was full, so I fired that sucker up to boil me a comfortably-warm sponge bath. As it heated, the Child awoke, hungry as they are in the morning (and mid-morning, noon, early afternoon, afternoon, evening, and before bed time). Aha! once more! From eBay I had last year purchased a replacement for my old and rusted two-burner Coleman camp stove, and we had the propane tanks to feed it! Child was delighted, and cooked herself toast, toast, egg-in-a-basket, and a side of toast. My water warmed, and I thought that I would work a five-hour day and bring a few projects to completion.

The Child, enjoying the camping gear, had just decided to cook some scrambled eggs (with toast) for her mother, when Wife-Mother staggered through the door, blood streaming out of a scalp wound. While stowing the snow blower in the garage she had fallen, executing something like a triple-axel, and ended her motion with her head up against a sharp edge of metal. Time to travel up the freshly-cleared driveway to the Emergency Room, and hand over the $100.- co-pay for examination and wound-repair. And so it was, with naught more serious than a laceration. But my wife declares, with first-hand knowledge, that having a scalp wound stapled does not “pinch”… it hurts! Or, as she told the doctor through gritted teeth “I don’t much like this!!”

Happily, the procedure was concluded in five hours, with the tedium somewhat relieved through the utilization of MP3 players and iPhones. Facebooking from the E.R.! Oh Brave New World! We ate a very late lunch, then I was presented with the promised Casio Exilim 10.5 megapixel camera, at no cost to mine own accounts! But returning home we discovered that power was yet to be restored. We were down to the final half-dozen logs, and we dare not go into the freezer because it would accelerate the powerless defrosting. Evening was coming, and candles, oil lamps, and eventually, a double-mantled Coleman lantern were lit. Civilization generally provides for food and heat, and we were fast losing those resources. So the Man of the Household, Aged, and with Aching Back, set off on the hunt.

Just a few weeks before I had mocked the small, over-priced, shrink-wrapped bundles of firewood that convenience stores occasionally sold to provide tourists upstate with ambiance, but now I myself was in search of them. I drove through still-falling slush at dusk, wandering from shop to shop, when inspiration struck. Although our digital, wireless landline was useless without power, we had swapped it with an older touch-tone phone earlier in the day, and the telephone lines were yet intact. Interfacing modern technology with those earlier electronics, I pulled my modestly-used cell phone from my pocket and networked with the Wife. ‘Call around!’ I implored. ‘Let me know where I can purchase dead trees!’ And, lo! There were several shops that Had What We Needed, and so I loaded the trunk. Picked up some groceries, too, so we needn’t open the refrigerator or freezer to the “warmer” surroundings.

Finally, I was home, lit by the glow of captive fires. The Child, temporarily enjoying the Frontier theme, brought in the wood for her weary parent, and the house was thus kept warm. The groceries were placed in a cooler packed with snow, and buckets were placed beneath the rainspouts outdoors to collect water to flush the toilet and to heat on the stove to clean my stinking flesh later that night. The Birthday Dinner would be postponed, but exhaustion had banked my appetite, regardless.

I inserted my down sleeping bag beneath the bed’s comforter and cocooned myself, whispering a prayer that when I awoke this cold dream would be ended, the Promise of Spring would be fulfilled, and electrons would once more course merrily through copper filaments in the wall, working devices and illuminating lights. So Mote It Be!

Instead, it snowed another two days, and power was not restored for just short of three days, three days of… adventure. But Civilization did return, and just in time to host my mother when she lost power!

But now, with temperatures soaring into the 40’s and the Internets humming, detritus cleaned and stove ashes emptied, those days so recent have an ethereal quality in memory. Labour-intensive, yes, but not miserable. We rose to the occasion. And anyway, a week later, there are still 20,000 people in the county who remain without modern amenities. I count my blessings.

I hardly notice that I’m fifty-seven years old.

Unless I try to move. Then my body reminds me, in no uncertain terms. But, better than the alternative, eh?

2010-01-26T21:23:00.000-08:00

MidWinter Nearing

Some Beginnings...

Over 20,000 years ago Ice Age hunters may have already begun recording the timing and positions of celestial bodies. Accurately tracking and anticipating the cycle of the seasons became vital with the domestication of food crops around 11,000 years ago, and although the first calendars may not have been developed until 3000 BCE, primitive does not mean stupid.

In all societies, rituals and ceremonies were held to mark significant occasions on the seasonal calendar. When is the shortest day, and when is the longest? When was there warmth and light enough to plant the seed, and when was it time to harvest? How much longer would the cold and darkness last, and do we have enough stored to avoid starvation? Perhaps our songs and our sacrifices will assure that the holy cycle continues with predictable regularity, perhaps our masks and noises will ward off evil influences, perhaps our play-acting will resonate hermetically with the Universe so as to meet our needs - 'As above, so below.' It worked?!? Let's keep doing it!!

Northern European societies formalized these occasions, the solstices and equinoxes, and the points between, in a system of archaeoastronomy. Pagan names include Samhain, Yule, Imbolc, Eostara, Beltane, MidSummer, Lughnasad, and Mabon. A variety of public rituals marked these occasions, proclaiming, The Great Wheel Turns.

A youth raised in a different, more Catholic, culture, would not have that full depth of comprehension then. But, as they say, 'by chance,' he discovered a children's tome in his public library, one translated from it's original Finnish : Moominland Midwinter authored by Tove Jannson. He read it, and was inspired.

So, in the Mid of Winter, in the cold and the darkness, he went outdoors in his Northern Jersey yard and celebrated. Improvised horns bellowed out. A rude torch blazed and lit up the night, "The Sun's coming back! No darkness, no loneliness, anymore." That lad conducted his observance alone, but his Fire Ceremony blazed a path to the future. That lad became Ur-father to our little Tribe.

Though MidWinter ceremonies had been planted, the seed lay fallow for fourteen years before sprouting again into the Modern Era in 1982. It was a bleak MidWinter, cold and dark, and I was filled with the stings and bruises of bad experiences. And my nach-Brüder, our Artificer, was feeling much the same. Fortune did not seem to particularly shine upon us, and though we didn't yet know it, we had the MidWinter Bluez. We would have to do something about this...

... more to come ...

2010-01-05T21:24:00.000-08:00

WINTER'S HEAT

I'm not as young as I once was, and truth to tell I've never been the most burly of fellows. Now, in the midst of Winter, with temperatures in the 'teens, the PetroLords gleefully watch their stocks and profits rise upon the shivering people of the Northeast.

Carbon-footprint be damned, I have a fireplace insert, and as I examined my last few year's of utility bills, I find that I saved six-hundred and fifty dollars last Winter through the immolation of dead trees. Well, fact of the matter is that there is no inherent value other than warmth attached to that cellulose fed into Moloch's furnace. Otherwise it's time, and effort, and sore muscles soothed with ibuprofen. But last year, the grunt work saved me $650. in Black Gold. Not too shoddy! But, as I've noted, I am aging, and the joints, tendons, ligaments and muscle are not as forgiving as they once were, oh no.

Fortuitously, I have noted that our "humble" domicile faces due South and we are in the process of re-financing for substantial renovations. Glass walls and Black metal! This is a formula for nearly-free heat, and we will make use of it. If we wish to become just-a-bit more sophisticated, we can store some of the Day Star. Maybe down the road a piece...

Warmth and relaxation for aging bones sure seems the way to go. No heat-leaking McMansion for us, just a Cozy box.

Such a Paradise will perhaps well suffice,

2009-09-27T20:25:00.000-07:00

RELIGIOUS LITERALISTS :
Fueled by Fear or Ignorance?

Newsweek magazine has just published an excerpt from evolutionary biologist and ethologist Richard Dawkins' new book The Greatest Show on Earth : the Evidence for Evolution, The piece begins thus:

Creationists are deeply enamored of the fossil record, because they have been taught (by each other) to repeat, over and over, the mantra that it is full of "gaps": "Show me your 'intermediates!' " They fondly (very fondly) imagine that these "gaps" are an embarrassment to evolutionists. Actually, we are lucky to have any fossils at all, let alone the massive numbers that we now do have to document evolutionary history—large numbers of which, by any standards, constitute beautiful "intermediates." We don't need fossils in order to demonstrate that evolution is a fact. The evidence for evolution would be entirely secure even if not a single corpse had ever fossilized. It is a bonus that we do actually have rich seams of fossils to mine, and more are discovered every day. The fossil evidence for evolution in many major animal groups is wonderfully strong. Nevertheless there are, of course, gaps, and creationists love them obsessively.

The excerpt caused me to once again consider the Culture Wars that convulse so many societies as the perspectives of religion and science clash. Of course, not all adherents of those points of view are active combatants. Most atheists recognize that there is something bigger than they, something mysterious and awe-inspiring that includes and connects everything that we know. You might as well consider that a spiritual perspective, although a supernatural Personality is not part of that outlook. Likewise, many practitioners of traditional religions find no terrible conflict between their beliefs and science; they just consider the "Big Bang" and evolution the tools that their Deity uses in the work of Creation.

I can understand the impulse to subscribe to a religious set of beliefs, with Rules as to how to investigate that Spirit in a like-minded community. It strikes me as excessively limiting to cleave to only one perspective out of a spectrum of possibilities - but I do understand it. We are each raised in traditions, and develop our own comfort zones.

But, I do not understand Religious Literalists of any faith, those who insist that the blunt, everyday meaning of words, not metaphor or analogy, are the actual words and intentions of a Conscious Deity, despite being filtered through human hands, humans who were products of their times and cultures. Their contortions to justify their literal reading and reject evidence bemuse me especially when contending with cosmological questions such as evolution.

They seem to accept the science of geology when it locates petroleum deposits, or precious ores, or as it studies volcanoes and earthquakes; but they reject it when it demonstrates the long epochs that the Earth has existed. They accept astronomy and its mathematical calculations that allow us to throw a tiny machine hundreds of thousands of miles into space, arriving at a precise time and location, but deny its validity when its calculations disagree with their beliefs as to the Universe's age.

They accept the physical laws that govern matter, determining how large a yield a nuclear bomb will produce, or calculating the half-life of a radioisotope as doctors use it to illuminate the body in search of disease. But these techniques are invalidated when they analyze material samples and determine that they are millions of years old, not mere thousands. They accept biological sciences and molecular chemistry when there are crops and livestock to be improved, pathogens to be tracked, or medicines developed targeting specific genetic strains of disease; but they dismiss the application of the scientific method when they sum up evolutionary principles.

What effort must be expended in compartmentalizing these perspectives, to maintain that intellectual firewall! Unless their Deity is deliberately trying to confuse us, these intellectual contortions serve no sensible purpose other than perhaps serving some deep-seated emotional need.

Fear, or ingrained Ignorance are the only explanations that readily come to mind as to their often fanatic opposition of scientific analysis.

What do you think?

2009-07-05T13:34:00.000-07:00

Follow That Muse!!

I have always been a reader because I was always read to. My progenitors read to me incessantly, repeatedly reciting Golden Books and the new sensation, Dr. Suess, until I just automatically learned to read along. Fun pictures helped a lot, too. I was introduced to comic books before first grade, passed-along issues of Superman, Action Comics, Wonder Woman, Batman, Brave and the Bold, Justice League. My first public letter of commentary was printed in 'Wonder Woman's Mailbag.' There were the odd issues of "Classics Illustrated" to round out my enchantment with literature.

They tried to... curb my enthusiasm... in the first grade of the Catholic School I attended. The nun teaching the class was a scold, and often enough I bore the brunt of her scorn for trying to 'read above my station.' The class was doing "Dick and Jane," you see. I shouldn't be reading all of that stuff about mythology and science, and science fiction, because... the class was reading "Dick and Jane!" She really didn't like it when my cousin, who was in Second Grade, had his teacher bring me in to explain about dinosaurs! To this day I am still not entirely comfortable with my intellectual capacity due to that pointed lack of support.

The flip side of reading, of course, is writing. With rudimentary language but illustrated by tiny pictures, I transcribed a large number of dreams over my early childhood years. They were stories, and I realized early on that this was how those people who wrote things that I enjoyed did it! A wider vocabulary and more sophisticated pictures, but the basic principle was the same. Doing it was something that seemed enjoyable, too. I never set out to become a writer, but it always appealed to me.

It was not until years of writing dozens upon dozens of fragments of incomplete stories that I began to realize that this creative effort could require serious work, and that meant regularity, not exactly the strong suite in my laissez faire approach to life. It required Time and Effort. I read something by super-prolific author Isaac Asimov who wrote that he was compelled to write a half-dozen pages a day or he felt incomplete. It didn't even really matter if they were ever used or not. He was driven... and very successful. No such drive flogged me forward, unfortunately, and truth to tell, there was an element of reluctance to complete my own endeavours, because something finished was then subject to judgement, if not by others, then by my own critical self. I did market two short stories to half a dozen magazines in 1970, but was the recipient of no more than rejection slips.

I had a formal opportunity to learn the craft of writing in my middle-teens, and in fact a salesman from "The Famous Writer's School" came to sign me up; but I got cold feet and my father sent him on his way, never insisting that I take a stand. More's the pity. In one last effort, I went to college at SUNY New Paltz in 1971 with the intent of laying the foundation for a career in journalism; the English prerequisites soured me on that plan, with a less-than inspiring curriculum and department. Eventually I obtained degrees in anthropology and in psychology (but that's another tale) and still work in the human service field thirty-four years later.

Not that reading and writing have not been constant companions; I have never been shy to express my opinion in letters to the editor for thirty-nine years, and for many of those was also an active correspondent with friends and relatives (superseded now by email, I fear). In my employ as a case manager I have written hundreds of pages of documents and letters over the last nine years, but these are circumscribed and my creativity is restricted to the objectives of my clientele.

As I have noted in previous blog entries, I have been experiencing increasing anomie in the last few years. As Jack Nicholson asked himself, "Suppose this is as good as it gets?" That thought has made me sad. But creative writing has still come, in fits and starts. Over perhaps the last six years I've written a half-dozen 'warped children's stories' about the characters Bromberg and Annie Pumpkin" and found them satisfying. Earlier this year I "penned" a short horror story in the style of H.P. Lovecraft. And last month I spotted a bumper sticker whose slogan rang a gong in my consciousness: "Remember who it is you always wanted to be."

So it was that shortly after, under the influence of a few pints of Guinness stout, that I began to muse upon my childhood, and a book published in 1963 came to mind. Called "The Vanishing Village" by Will Rose, it was a series of stories somewhat fictionalizing his childhood in Woodstock, N.Y. in the 1890's. It occurred to me that my own family's move to Woodstock in 1961, where we remained for eight years, precipitated my own developmental adventures in a decade that saw the national culture changing, spilling over onto my hometown and shaping my perspectives. Why, what a great idea for my own series of stories! Let's not be slavishly devoted to the accuracy of the events, the time-lines, the specific players, let me mine my nostalgia for entertainment!

I pack a pen as I travel down memory lane, jotting notes and vignettes of odd scraps of paper, shoving them into pockets for later examination and transcription, and this has been a fruitful approach. I'm enjoying examining the jigsaw puzzle-pieces of my early teen years, figuring how this relates to that and exercising my wordsmithery. These are shared with a small circle of family and friends, and their feedback has been rewarding. I will try to produce quality rather than quantity. I will print these out and put them in a clearly-market binder, extracted from the chaos that is my computer, a physical stack to point to and declare "I did that!"

Mneme, Melete, Clio and Calliope, I salute you and raise a libation to your inspiration! I ask that our partnership be enjoyable and sustain my spirits. Let's have fun!

2009-07-04T11:02:00.001-07:00

The Unending Challenge

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

2009-06-08T21:08:00.000-07:00

Portable Personas

Who are we?

We are born blank and tabla rasa but for a modest inheritance of instinct; yes, Homo Sapiens has genetic programming, despite our proud proclamation of Free Will. Then there are the Voices that we adopt: parent, teacher, priest, television host, or other cultural programmers. From this parliament of voices we each become I.

None the less, those Voices still speak to us, in dreams, in contemplation, and in conflict. In schizophrenia, there is no majority, just argumentative contention. In Health, there is consensus, with minority report.

Who am I?

Worker, son, husband, father, this-and-that. These are not just voices - these are personae and skill sets, some greater, some lesser, a psychic closet of costumes and masks from among which we may select. My own primary personality seems to be one oriented toward facilitating communication. I transfer information from one agent to another, translating it to some degree, trying to synchronize concepts and expectations. This talent lies close to the core of 'who I am,' although it is often thankless and fails, my efforts falling on barren ground, my observations and descriptions but dust on the wind. Disappointment is not a rare experience in my endeavours, both personal and professional. So, what carries me forward, what gives me visceral, not just abstract, satisfaction?

I try to communicate. I parent. But, as much as I love these roles, on some level, these are nebulous, without a true conclusion. I find that it is the concrete that does for me, with tangible results of my efforts, things I can see and touch and point to. I admire artists who can hang a pattern of sound in the air, who can produce an image of various substances, colours, forms and dimensions. Such are not my skills, alas. But over the years I have developed at least two sets of talents and have been endowed with Roles by their exercise.

Communication forms a close alliance with social skills, and I do enjoy the casual expressions of companionship. It is less work than intimacy, with its tricky constraints of time, and effort, and mores. As I have noted elsewhere, this repartee has oft been facilitated by that subtle poison, alcohol, especially when administered in public houses where a diverse crowd may gather to 'hoist a few.' I stumbled upon such an employment when personal trauma impelled me to quickly seek an alternative vocation. I became a Bartender, and although I no longer stand behind a stained counter, I carry this persona with me to this day. The Master of Ceremonies, quick with a pun or a nugget of trivia, a sympathetic ear administering anesthesia for a spectrum of tastes, the arbiter of what you May or May Not (not in here, anyway!), and the receiver of filthy lucre, such a hustler's game! Even now, at a party, I may juggle and opine, and if called upon, mix up a Long Island Iced Tea to quench a thirst (equal parts vodka, gin, rum, tequila and triple sec, shaken in sour mix (lemonade) with a splash of cola and lemon slice). Salud!

Later I learned an unexpected facility, for I never considered myself one to commune with a machine - in fact, au contaire! Rather, we did argue, and often bitterly. I was no artificer, to have my way with metal and electronic mysteries... But frustration did its work and pushed me over the edge. The first computer in our household was too limited. I was told that it could be more; but that would require new software. The software called for more memory, and later, more processing speed. I sought to hire a fellow who understood these things to upgrade our machine, but all he delivered were promises and frustration. So one day, with trepidation... I popped the hood and looked within, and gingerly pried and poked, and went to a vendor, part in hand, to tremulously ask, "You got another one of these?"

It did what it was supposed to do, and I was able to install this thing called "Windows." But sometime that programs and the machine did not know how to talk to each other; a speaker card - the computer's amplifier - did not understand what the software jukebox wanted it to do. Or the fax progrm and the modem spoke foreign tongues, and would not work together. So I picked the brains of nerds, geeks, and techies, trying to apply their instructions to my particular challenge, sometime successfully, other times, not. But my skill set developed as the whole computer field has done, meandering on the Internets, and attaching exotic peripherals that can enable you to do... a whole lot of things, if you hook it all together right, and tell the parts how to work with each other. In fact, for a few years, I ran a small registered business upon which I paid taxes, and to this day I take some pride when people refer to me as the Computer Guy.

But now I find that times are once again tough, my pleasures are few, and satisfaction, the exception. Time for a New Role. What might that be? I am older, and weary, and so much of my time is spoken for. The rut is deep, and though banal, it is comfortingly familiar. How shall I get my Mojo working? I will not surrender, though I loathe the challenge. Inspiration is what I pray for, something to focus my attention.

Maybe something that I could have been? for as the bumper sticker before me advised, "Be the Person You Always Dreamed You Would Be."

We shall see...

2009-05-16T18:14:00.000-07:00

BODY and SOUL

I admire, and more importantly, enjoy, Joss Whedon's work as the creator, producer and writer of television series such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly. Beside being a humanist, atheist, and avowed feminist, Whedon is one of only a handful of television writers who genuinely seems to understand the potential of using fantasy and science fiction to ask Big Questions as they relate to human conflicts and aspirations. When I heard that he had a new series coming out in February (alas! on Fox!), I marked it on my calendar, planning for the rare opportunity to watch a program in real time.

"Dollhouse" [Fridays at 9pm] follows Eliza Dushku as a character designated "Echo," formerly a troubled young woman named Carolyn, who has been coerced into "volunteering" to lease out her body for five years in exchange for having her difficulties resolved. She is only one of many "Dolls," men and women kept in self-contained "Dollhouses" hidden throughout the world, where they are hired out as highly-skilled mercenaries and fantasy performers for those who can afford their high-priced "engagements."

Just how do they obtain their extraordinary talents, ranging from hostage negotiator to catburgler, personal porn star, or surgeon? Topher Brink, played in full geekdom by Fran Kranz, operates a technology that imprints amalgams of recorded personalities and talents into the mind of the Doll, transforming them into "Actives" who carry out the assignments for which they have been hired, transactions brokered by the house martinet, Adelle DeWitt (Olivia Williams). Each Active is supported by a Handler (Harry J. Lennix plays Boyd Langton, who oversees Echo) who monitor and safeguard their charges until it is time for their next "treatment" to revert them to Dollhood.

And there's the rub: in order to imprint the matrix of a new persona into a brain, the pre-existing mind must be "hollowed out." The body's original mind and personality is recorded onto a storage Wedge, and nothing is left in the Doll but a vague child-like personality that can perform basic living functions and obediently follow directions until a new personality and skill set is electronically imprinted in them.

But is the mind all that makes one a person? What about "the soul?" What about one's lifetime of habits that help define who we are? Are these, too, erased? Whedon suggests, perhaps not... and what then?

I understand that developing such a concept takes time. It is particularly difficult to introduce us to, and help us empathize with, characters who can be multiple characters. There is back-story to be hinted at while on-going storylines, such as a rogue FBI investigation by Paul Ballard (Tahmoh Penikett, recently of "Battlestar Galactica"), develop. But I admit that I was less than taken with the series after the forth episode, and was composing a blog entry titled "Damning with Faint Praise." It struck me as "Charlies Angels" meets "Total Recall." Fortunately, the elements came together in a critical mass in the fifth episode, and I was hooked.

So many questions are raised. Are there conflicts between ingrained ethical habits and a superimposed persona? What happens if the amalgamated personality is repeatedly imprinted; does it leave its own tracings? Can one cheat death by the recording and re-imprinting of one's personality? What happens if there are multiple imprintings? Is this schizophrenia, or the "Abomination" of the Bene Gesserit's Ancestral Memories in Frank Herbert's "Dune" series? Or are they Übermenschen on their way to Godhood? And, what of the command of the technology itself? Can one "volunteer" to be a slave? So many engagements appear to be hedonistic ego-gratifications, little more than skilled prostitution; yet the Dollhouse creators claim that they also "do good," and that the revenue is important to... more important goals. Oh, we have heard those excuses before!

The first season of twelve episodes has come to its conclusion, but I understand that "Dollhouse" has been renewed for a second season. I look forward to the mysteries-within-mysteries, and ascertaining the fate of "the ghost in the machine." This one will be added to my DVD collection, one more way that I say, "Well done, Mr. Whedon!" This is a series that I wish to share.

2009-05-11T21:36:00.000-07:00

GHOSTS
on Memory Lane

Yeah, we all come here eventually.

The weather is just so, and we've had the precise amount of melancholy, nostalgia, or other intoxicants, or are otherwise seized by a transport of rapture, and the reality laid out before us is fused with the images of memory. We may revel, we may mourn, we may, Spock-like, reflect that it's "Fascinating." But we will inevitably arrive there.

We humans bind time and encode it in symbols. This is what we do, and why we're here.

My olde college towne, just down the road from my home; that vacant lot was filled, that store was reincarnated, once, twice, thrice, and more; it's just an empty space, subject to temporal imagination.

The breeze blows lightly, drying the week's rain, and the stone memorial bench on which I sit is inscribed with the names of people whom I'd met, but who are no more.

That's how it goes, isn't it?

There is a Zen parable that reads:

A rich man asked a Zen master to write something down that could encourage the prosperity of his family for years to come. It would be something that the family could cherish for generations. On a large piece of paper, the master wrote, "Father dies, son dies, grandson dies."

The rich man became angry when he saw the master's work. "I asked you to write something down that could bring happiness and prosperity to my family. Why do you give me something depressing like this?"

"If your son should die before you," the master answered, "this would bring unbearable grief to your family. If your grandson should die before your son, this also would bring great sorrow. If your family, generation after generation, disappears in the order I have described, it will be the natural course of life. This is true happiness and prosperity."

It does indeed give me comfort that the Wheel turns, that Winter has given way to Spring and promises Summer. I anticipate the respite of the Fall after the efforts of the Summer, and the rest that is promised with the following Winter. It will all come around again.

There will be others, on this spot, in their time, their here, their now. Our Shades may linger for a time. But let them fade in the clear sunshine. Let them be naught but echoes and briefly-glimpsed images.

May the distant-worlds in which we may not live bring a smile to our face, but let no regret crease our brow. This is as it should be. This is the slow growth of the generations and nigh-holy evolution. Secure your spot, if you can.

We are but one note in the Symphony.

2009-05-04T19:00:00.000-07:00

Simple Things

Back in January I accompanied a client to a local small-town food bank and was appalled. Not at the facility, nor the all-volunteer staff. The program also serves as a referral center for all manner of social needs, for housing, for public grants, for drug- and emotional crisis intervention. It's all good.

No, I was taken aback by the level of need, and the paucity of available resources. The staff having to ration one box of macaroni and cheese for a family of four; having to distribute quite possibly intact, but certainly unsellable crushed boxes and deeply dented cans. The apparent incapacity of the clientelle, with poor hygiene, tattered clothing, bad teeth, and desperately limited understanding of how to independently manage resources to better their situation. The people who the Elite declare need to "get a job" and "pull themselves up by their bootstraps."

I am not living particularly high on the hog and must sometime carefully juggle my family resources. But, as Martina McBride sings:

And here I am in my clean white shirt
With a little money in my pocket and a nice warm home

and I'm keeping my needs covered, and can pretty regularly satisfy my modest wants. I am thankful for the advantages I have due to a whole train of good fortune over my 56-years, despite some seriously foolish moves on my part. I ain't hurtin.' So I decided to do a simple thing, one that really doesn't require that much time, or effort, or expense, on my part.

Every week when I go grocery shopping, I spend five dollars on some extra food. I try to be careful, mix 'n match stuff that can stretch. A box of pasta, jar of marinara, big can of green beans. A big jar of peanut butter, and a matching jar of jam (most food banks seem to have plenty of three-day old bread). A bag of rice, a can of beans, and one of corn. A couple of tins of tuna fish, or stew, or even Spam. The photo above is one month's collection, five dollars a week casually tossed into my shopping cart.

And, once a month, I take it to that food bank in a box. You know, it would be a whole lot easier just to drop a $20. bill on them every month. But that would also be insulating myself from the unpleasant reality, those empty shelves, those frustrated people not sure how they're going to make it to their disability check not due for three days yet. There's a reason to be doing something like this other than personal satisfaction.

There is need.

I'm no hero, here. Again, it's a simple thing I am doing, well within my means. I can burn five bucks a week on a microbrew, and may have several at that. But, if a dozen people were to do this, cutting out the middlemen and the time that the small pool of staffers would have to spend shopping, how many would we feed? If we bought a few packages of basics t-shirts, briefs, and socks a month, how many would we clothe?

Just before I sat down to blog this, I found the following quote, and I think it says it neatly and concisely, and it rings true every time I read it:

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."

- President Barack H. Obama

2009-05-02T20:26:00.000-07:00

RACISM
is Alive and Well

Sometime you just need to let the pixures speak for themselves.

Hey, you know something people?
I'm not black
But there's a whole lots a times
I wish I could say I'm not white

Frank Zappa "Trouble Every Day" (1966)

2009-04-15T00:24:00.000-07:00

The Primitive Joys
of Viciousness

One of the few television programs that I watch anymore is "Saving Grace" on TNT, in which Holly Hunter plays a police detective in the Oklahoma City Police Depeartment. Her team has a ritual whenever a convict is about to be executed in State Prison; they gather at a bar with full mugs of beer, and they draw some of the beverage up into hypodermic syringes. When the television announcement comes that the execution has been finalized, they discharge streams of beer into the air while whooping in celebration.

I know people like this. Not just common citizens, but professionals including police and military personnel. People who have indeed been trained to be prepared to kill in the line of duty, a still unfortunate component of our primitive state of "civilization." That being said, their eagerness to 'kick butt, take names, crack some heads together, and put a bullet through the (add dehumanizing slur here)' disturbs me.

These are supposed to be our defenders. But their caveman joy in anticipation of conducting violence bothers me. In fact, it makes me feel vaguely threatened.

I remember when Afghanistan was identified as the state habouring those who attacked us on September 11, 2001. In particular I remember a "weather report" posted on the Net that displayed a map of Afghanistan, dotted with little mushroom clouds. The temperature today, it reported, was hot as the surface of the sun, and the extended forecast was for pain and suffering for all eternity. Obviously, the fact that there were Afghanis who were uninvolved with al-Qaeda or the Taliban was irrelevent; as the saying goes, "Kill 'em all, and let God sort 'em out."

I periodically participate in on-line discussions in groups hosted by Newsvine, which utilize news clippings as "seeds" for discussion. In a thread this week in which the posted questioned whether it had really been necessary for the Navy SEALS to kill the three Somali pirates that were holding Captain Richard Phillips, I opined:

We DO need to break the back of the pirate operations, and force will be necessary.

That being said, I am always amazed by the yahoo bloodsport self-righteous enthusiasm so many display, the "Kill 'em all and let god sort 'em out" mentality. I'm sure those of you having your military-action tailgate parties will just excuse the deaths of innocent hostages as 'unfortunate collateral damage' although I suspect their families might feel a little different about them.

Strategy counts, and wanting to minimize deaths all around does not make one a wuss (although I'm sure that those pumped up on testosterone are sure to disagree).

Despite what I consider a fairly moderate and balanced tone, I received the following response:

Let me tell you something about "collateral damage" 99.9% of the time it is caused by them, not us, damn right SEAL's are ready, willing and able, but no SEAL is blood thursty, or self righteous, and none of us want to see an innocent die, but when the dirty, get you hands bloody and be a killer jobs come, there are none better, nor more willing to step up and do what ever has to be done.

YOU do not have the right to slam bast any American service personal who are willing to lay their life on the line for another American, until YOU have been there and seen it and done it, keep your two cents to your self.

People like you only want us around when the @!$%# hits the fan, then when we do out job, and do it better than anyone else I might ad, you want to crap all over us with you bleeding heart bull @!$%#.... HOOYAH, any more trash to take out!!!!!

The fellow posted similar comments to anyone else who appeared to be temperate in their perspectives; bloodlust appears to be something some nationalistically-inclined actively celebrate as if it were a sporting event, as long as it's a win for our team. Remember "U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A!" ?

Lest I be accused of being a "Blame America First" Liberal, let me note that this sort of thing appears to be part of the caveman emotional mentality that still holds sway over much of humanity. I well recall Bosnians dancing joyfully on the wreckage of an American fighter jet, Iraquis celebrating about the burned bodies of American mercenaries in Fallujah in 2004, on and on, back through the bread and circus spectacles of Roman executions... but it's 2000 years later. You would hope that we would have made more progress, but, alas...

I think that Sun Tzu got it right in "The Art of War" written around the 3rd Century B.C.E. :

When forced to fight, fight to win, but do not rejoice after winning; treat winning a war as undertaking a funeral.

2009-03-31T10:23:00.000-07:00

HISTORY : WHAT IS REALITY?

We humans often spin fantasies by way of explanation for those things that we understand poorly or not at all. Superstition is only one manifestation of this tendency. Another, more rarely acknowledged, is the supposed separation of the "objective" from the "subjective." The rigours of objective observation, after all, are filtered through an individual's subjective observations, with all of their individual biology and history creating the lenses through which one observes. The critical mass of multiple subjective observations, more or less subscribing to a discipline of procedures, eventually results in a largely consensual "objective" reality; but this can be a tricky business.

This was brought home to me while recenly touring the Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada. This exhibition is sponsored in part by the SmithsonIan Institute, itself no stranger to controversy over the perspective of some of its presentations. One must also note that the test site in central Nevada, established after the late 1940's testing in the Pacific proved to be complicated, expensive, and generated political fallout due to the radioactive fallout, was a military-industrial business that profited, and even entertained the region. Any presentation is bound to defend itself because of those realities. Indeed, during a film interviewing some of the physicists and engineers of the project, one of them addressed public controversy about nuclear weapons as a "freedom" that the Bomb actually provided because of its deterrance of those totalitarian regimes who would themselves restrict those freedoms (although one elderly member of the audience loudly exclaimed "BULLSHIT!" to that statement).

How can so controversial a presentation of these terrible weapons achieve a reasonable balance? One should rely heavily on uninterpreted historical facts whenever possible, presenting a timeline and recording blunt events along that route. The Museum does just that, with dates scrolling across the walls from room to room of both political events and of technical developments. Provide full, unedited documentation linked to those events that the observer may review and parse according to their own personal methods, and copies of letters from Albert Einstein to President Roosevelt, technical briefings, correspondance, and supply manifests, do that as well. Finally, some effort needs to be made to provide the social context in which these weapons were developed, used, and tested. The Atomic Testing Museum attempts this by adding to the timeline dates of sociocultural note both large and small such as the development of penicillin, rayon, or the mainframe computer; Civil Rights marches, riots, and treaties; dance crazes, television shows, and art movements. In fact, at regular intervals there are monitors looping related media clips - actor Ronald Reagan rousing the troops and newsreel of Jap atrocities, Fibber McGee and Molly, and advertisements for War Bonds and John Deere tractors; President Eisenhower dedicating public works, Milton Berle and the Texaco Hour, the challenge of Sputnick; Kennedy's Race to the Moon, Ed Sullivan and the Beatles, dogs and fire hoses in Selma, and so forth. And at each turn, still and motion pictures of underwater nuclear detonations, aerial detonations, underground detonations. The radiation? "Yes, there were risks." "Yes, there was a price to pay." Again, we must remember the bias; this was a business, and the livelihood of many technical, and support personnel. The righteousness or mendacity of this military venture? Well... what's your opinion?

I will add that some of the artifacts and sets were fascinating, and some factoids, disturbing. There is a concrete bunker from which you can "watch" an above-ground nuclear test that delivers blinding light, a shaking theater, and a stiff blast of air as the "shockwave" hits. There are massive, alien drillbits used to dig out underground tunnels, glass dials, rubber-insulated cables, and bakelite knobs and dials on test rigs that make you appreciate what could be done with brute-force industrial technology. And discovering that the first several generations of nuclear weapons were indeed subject to accidental detonation and fission-explosion makes one recognize what dumb luck our civiliztion has had, and you can only pray that our luck holds as our technology continues to outrace our social development.

Perspective -- cultivate it if you can. It may be one of the fragile firewalls between the survival of our species, and armageddon.

2008-11-15T23:43:00.000-08:00

Taking a Longer View
part 1

These are the days of lasers in the jungle,
Lasers in the jungle somewhere,
Staccato signals of constant information,
A loose affiliation of millionaires
And billionaires and baby,
These are the days of miracle and wonder,
This is the long distance call,
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all

"Boy in the Bubble" - Paul Simon

During his historic Victory speech on November 4th President-elect Obama made reference to a notable woman whom he had met on the campaign:

"This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations," Obama told the tens of thousands of supporters who had gathered in Chicago on Tuesday night. "But one that's on my mind tonight is about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She's a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing -- Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.
"She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn't vote for two reasons -- because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.

"And tonight, I think about all that she's seen throughout her century in America -- the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can't, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can."
This resonated strongly, because my family has discussed just this perspective since my first-American born aunt passed away two years ago at the age of 102. These women spanned the Twentieth Century in all of its wonder and horror. The century changed America and changed the World, in ways casual and common, in others subtle but profound.

I have used as an example of the more casual changes the contrast of vacation opportunities for my aunt in her mid-employment and mine today. In the 1930's there was little, if any, paid vacation for the common worker. If you had a nice boss, you might be able to take a week off -- but probably not every year! You had to pinch your pennies to afford that week. My aunt lived in Northern New Jersey; a trip to the Jersey Shore was nearly an all-day affair by bus and two-lane roads. You might share a family bungalow, and you brought much of your food in cans, boxes, and sacks, and fishing off of the piers would supplement your menu. You went less to be entertained than to simply relax.

I fall somewhere within the turbulent middle-class and have maintained my employment with one business for 22-years. It would be a simple matter to, Monday morning, clear my next week's schedule and present my supervisor with a request for one of my weeks of accrued paid-vacation time. That afternoon I could go to my travel agent and purchase a week in Hawaii. I would proffer my credit card and be given a handful of computer-generated forms. Five days later I could drive less than an hour to a regional airport, and twelve hours later, use the same credit card to purchase a loud shirt and a meal on Oahu's shore, and later attend a Hawaiian extravaganza to delight the senses.

One hundred years!

There has been a price, of course, one that we typically only recognize during crisis. There has been a profound challenge to hundreds of thousand's of years of human nature. That challenge is the very world we have created and which the fortunate so enjoy. Albert Einstein made it clear:
"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity."
How did our world become so collectively, dangerously, complicated over one long lifetime? How is it that we are engaged in "cultural warfare?"

I have my thoughts, of course, and they will be presented in part 2.

2008-11-14T17:57:00.000-08:00

Cold Passages,
and Warm

The two items I read first in the local paper every morning are the police beat, and the obituaries. I have for the most part lived in the same area for forty-seven years (minus perhaps six, in various configurations), and it is not unusual to recognize names on either list. Friends, neighbors, co-workers, clients. It is generally better to show up on the legal list than on the mortal. However, this morning, it was the latter.

She did in fact work at the same agency as do I; I instantly recognized her name. I have been employed there for 22 years, she, not quite that long, but long enough. Her age was listed, only three years older than me.

I knew her name, but I realized, with some shock, that I had no face for her.

We are an agency employing just shy of one thousand people spread across a county with a population of 182,742, but our two main offices are just a few blocks from each other in one modest city. Plus, C.D., rest her soul, worked in our accounting office, one of the most central functions of any sizable business. Not only did I have no face for the woman, but I didn't even know that she had left her position, as I found out, over a year ago!

This is a sad commentary on, at least, our business culture, if not our culture at large. We marginally know our neighbors, or our co-workers. Even our families and friends are spread over geographical distances, and more and more often, it seems that the primary events that bring us together are funerals. Even twenty years ago, at another agency, for which I worked in the same field, people from different departments and allied service providers would at least get together at specific taverns for happy hour on payday, or invite each other to our agency's Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. But now, there's no time, or no interest, or even a kind of tribal separation: 'you stay in your department, I'll stay in mine.' Productive cooperation has suffered accordingly.

Hopefully, my agency is more unique as regards this decline in civil congress, but I suspect that our society continues to atomize in this brave new world. I consider it a loss, despite the freedoms of anonymity. A person has left this mortal coil, a name, published in newstype, is erased, and I am left not with sadness, but bemusement. Stronger emotions depend on relationships.

Nevertheless, rest in peace, C.D.

****************************************************************************
In the same theme, I took my lunch yesterday at a little storefront Chinese restaurant on a cool, damp, and gray day , enjoying a plate of Hunan Walnut Chicken with pork-fried rice and hot tea. A woman with a cane and a headscarf limped by the large window, then returned, and entering the dining nook, greeted me. My mental processes paused before I recognized her. She is the partner of one of the fellows with whom I monthly get together to hoist a pint, and she has joined us for New Years and various seasonal gatherings for at least six years.

She has been battling cancer for two years, including nasty surgeries and chemicals.

We spent about five minutes talking; she was engaged in some chores on behalf of her elderly mother, and was clearly weary. We made chit-chat, and then she revealed that her most recent medical tests 'don't look too good.' Translation: 'I am closer to dying.' Her attitude seemed good, and she was appeciative of the prayers and best-wishes that have been forwarded her way. I acknowledged her... challenge... and said that I hoped that she and her beau would be able to join the gang this upcoming New Year's Eve. Matter of factly, she replied, "Well, we'll see."

Forty-six days from now, she may no longer be among the living. While not a close friend, it did make me glum, and made me reflect on how I face the prospect of my own mortal terminus. I do not believe in personal immortality, so how then do I proceed?

For me, an aphorism I have seen credited to the Shakers provides my roadmap:

"Live each day as if it were your last, but work each day as if you will live forever."

May we all, eventually, rest in peace.

2008-11-04T21:47:00.000-08:00

The Real Work
Starts Now

Thank you, President Bush: it turned out to be true, you are a "Uniter," and President-elect Barack Hussein Obama, the Democratic Party, and Americans from all backgrounds and walks of life have all come together in a common cause : to un-do the damage you have inflicted upon our Nation through hubris and greed. From despair, we offer the standard of Hope. We will struggle to negotiate real, productive compromises that are respectful of our differences and beliefs. We will strive to overcome the polarization, poison, and mockery that has torn our political and social processes for the last several decades in order to achieve our common purposes and raise our society to a higher level of dignified maturity.

Well... maybe just one last dig... ;)

2008-11-04T15:40:00.000-08:00

THIS IS WHAT
DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!

Finally, the Day arrives... and although many are emotionally exhausted (if not disgusted) by the long campaign, and consider it absurd (if not obscene) that the Presidential candidates have spent in the neighborhood of one billion dollars in their campaigns... there should be a real satisfaction that more Americans than ever are actually engaged in this grand, continuing, experiment in self-government.

188 million citizens (out of a 304 million population, approx. 73% of whom are potentially eligible) are registered to vote in 2008! And, from the Democratic Party's perspective, Chairman Howard Dean's "50-State Strategy" to contest offices in every state, not just strategically elector-rich states, has borne enormous fruit. Barack Obama has taken that initiative and created a tremendous political infrastructure across these United States, one we will need to pull our nation back from the black hole into which the Bush Administration has thrown it.

I pray that our hopes are not crushed this evening by some unexpected turn; I cannot even allow myself to contemplate how we will endure another four years of belligerent, greed-based, theocratic-leaning politics. I cannot imagine how painful it might be if our hopes must give way to despair.

But even when (when!) our nation is lead by President Obama, our individual responsibilities will be far from done. Although the Republicans have been painting Barack Obama as some sort of fiery radical, that speaks more to how far Right the Neo-Cons have taken our government. Obama is clearly a Centrist; you can expect that he will compromise many of the fond dreams of those of us who consider ourselve Progressives, but I'm not sure that that is bad at this juncture in our history. He must try to bring us all together if we are to repair the damage caused by this not-yet finished, venal Administration. That is why, after perhaps a brief holiday, we must get back to work, to expand responsible, personal rights, to re-define national priorities so as to obtain economic and social justice, to make a massive, technological shift in our energy generation and manufacturing methods. All of this hampered by a quagmire of war and staggering economy.

Isn't it time to rest on our laurels? Isn't this why we are electing our Fearless Leader, to do these things for us?? Haven't we suffered enough???

No, that is the lazy way out, and, difficult as it has become in the remains of the Middle Class, on the whole we do not really know what suffering is: there are many in our own nation who are much more at risk, and vulnerable, and beyond our shores... continents of suffering. It is hubris writ large to imagine that we are just struggling to remain alive just for one more day. I remember the early 1970's: the Vietnam War was ended, African-Americans had secured the vote, women's rights were on the march, and saving the environment was all the rage. We'd done our job; put that puppy on autopilot, and enjoy the fruits of our labour!

Ronald Reagan, the "Moral Majority," the Gingrichian "Contract On America," and George Dumbya Bush rose in influence and power how? Because of complacency, because of taking our eyes off of the ball, by being so distracted by the very real issues of living day-to-day and not fostering the liberties and initiatives that had been established by our standard-bearers in the various "Rights" movements. We cannot afford to make the same mistake, cannot become complacent, must be willing to Question Authority and speak Truth to Power each and every day. Even when we don't want to. When it would be easier to go along, or when we're tired and cranky.

Thomas Jefferson told us that "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance," and he was not kidding around. We no longer have the luxury of denial, or to expect that 'Daddy will take care of us.' Let us also remember the words of Robert F. Kennedy from 1961, even more applicable today:

"On this generation of Americans falls the burden of proving to the world that we really mean it when we say all men are created free and are equal before the law. All of us might wish at times that we lived in a more tranquil world, but we don't. And if our times are difficult and perplexing, so are they challenging and filled with opportunity."

Our challenges just begin with voting today; let us take at least one more step toward a more perfect union.

2008-10-31T05:29:00.000-07:00

Samhain Blessings!

In Druidic tradition, Samhain is the time of the dead, when the veil between the worlds thins and spirits may walk with us in the land of the living. It is the feast of death and rebirth, and begins the New Year of the Celtic calendar with the falling of the last leaves, in the heart of the Autumn, the beginning of the Darkened Days, and the Quiet Time to listen to the Wisdom of the Crone. At this time we celebrate and commemorate our ancestors and elders who have passed into the Otherworld. But, fear naught, for the Sun will be born anew, and Light and Life will return to the world!

Solemn Blessings to You All; hold fast to the seed of Hope, and dream of Better days!

(and, in the Spirit of Hope:)

2008-10-30T20:47:00.000-07:00

Unreadable

“The Last Days of Krypton” by Kevin J. Anderson, Harper Books, 304 pages

Krypton, of course, was the doomed homeworld from which Kal-El – better known to Earth as Superman – was sent, its last surviving son. That great planet first appeared in the first issue of Superman in 1939 but has undergone numerous revisions, “re-imaginings,” and “retcons” since then. The “Golden and Silver Ages” presented us with Buck Rogers-like imagery, with sky-cars and the Fire Falls, the Scarlet Jungle, and the Jeweled Mountains. Richard Donner’s 1978 movie “Superman” and its sequels gave us a cold, sterile, and crystalline world orbiting a baleful giant red star. After the “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” the high civilization of a new Krypton was convulsed by the Clone Wars, the Black Zero movement, and given a death sentence by the “Eradicator.”

Which incarnation were you raised on, which left its images in your memory? They blur in my mind, and I have long since abandoned any real interest in continuity and accept their dissonance. I enjoy the various elements for what they are, and have my own favourites. Thus, when “The Last Days of Krypton” was published in 2007, I put it on my Christmas list, interested in reading what sort of amalgamated history might be presented therein. Santa delivered.

I have been an avid reader since my youngest years, thanks to the regularity with which my parents read to, and enriched me. The number of books that I have begun, but were unable to finish, count in the single digits.

“The Last Days of Krypton” is the most recent addition to that small list.

I did not immediately recognize the author’s name, but eventually realized that he was the co-writer of the expansion and completion of Frank Herbert’s “Dune” cycle, co-author with Herbert’s son Brian. Anderson has also written a space opera series known as “The Saga of Seven Suns,” including a graphic novel, “Veiled Alliances,” the one story in that series which I read. While struggling with “The Last Days” I recognize storytelling elements from “Dune” and “Alliances” that had… bothered me. Some writers tend to repeat words and phrases in many of their tales. They may reuse stereotypical situations, presenting contrived images for cheap emotional reactions. Their characters, bearing different names, may be simple reworkings of each other. This may be deliberate, if the author is interested in examining a particular theme, but I suspect that more often it is a matter of limited imagination.

One of these elements is cheap brutality. Another is the repeated stupidity of characters who are supposed to be intelligent. Then there is an almost morbid fascination with tawdry decadence. I suspect that the repeated references to “torture racks” upon which writhe countless hapless (and faceless) people in the “Dune” books is one of Anderson’s devices, as are the pages describing the attempts to drown a public relations agent in a sewerage tank. Perhaps I’m wrong. In “Veiled Alliances” characters perform vile acts that they anticipate will result in unwanted side effects; but they do them obediently anyway, complaining when the blowback ultimately occurs.

In the “Last Days,” most of the Kryptonian setting is culled from the Gold and Silver ages including that civilization’s exotic architecture, references to the destruction of one of Krypton’s moons, and various notable geographic highlights. Some of the elements incorporated from later tellings include the xenophobia-inducing contact with an alien, Donodon, and the miniaturization and abduction of the city of Kandor by the cybernetic Brainiac, as well as the trio of cruel, megalomaniac villains who were the main protagonists from the movie “Superman II.” I found the characters generally stilted, and some of their backgrounds seemed facile, including Superman’s father Jor-El, who has always baffled me; lauded as one of the superior Kryptonian intellects and statesmen, he has been notoriously ineffective in convincing his people to open their eyes and seek a higher path in nearly every incarnation. This may speak to the degree of decadence that had overtaken the Kryptonian civilization, but I find myself unable to suspend my disbelief. Only Jor-El’s wife-to-be, Lara, has any vibrancy, as an artist who seeks to awaken her patron-to-become husband from his declining lineage to the dangers that power-mongers and mob fear poses.

I found the description of the aristocratic decadence annoyingly pedestrian, almost latter-day Roman in its paralysis and willful ignorance. These people fly sky-cars and study advanced physics? but their Council cannot make any decisions other than “requiring further study” or concluding that any innovation or investigations must be halted. They entertain themselves with giant-lizard drawn chariot races! And yet, the disgruntled Zod, and his two embittered allies set up a military dictatorship because of unexamined, xenophobic fears. Perhaps this is meant as some sort of analogy to America on September 12th, 2001; if so, it is obscure, and fails as a cautionary caricature.

I managed to read one hundred and twenty pages, and then began to skip forward, reading a page here, a paragraph there, hoping to find a gem, some inspiration to resume reading until this superior segment. Alas! It was wooden and two-dimensional as some of the earliest comics. I read those in my childhood, and despite the nostalgia, my impressions are better left unsullied by the banal reality.

2008-10-28T18:37:00.000-07:00

Tales from the Tavern

This is not a new tale, nor a unique tale, but it is mine own. It is not particularly significant, just one more leaf fallen from the Tree of Humanity. But such a compost those leaves have produced...

Last Saturday, as I do nearly every other week, I bundled up the recyclables, emptied the trash, and went on a dump run. Autumn has fully taken hold of the Hudson Valley, and it was pleasant to be out and about. On the way home, as is my wont, I stopped off at a favourite tavern for a pint and some wings. The Beertender and waitstaff know me as a regular, and other Locals nodded in recognition. I don't know their names, nor they mine, but we occasionally share wry commentary and small chit-chat.

I have been frequenting this establishment since I began college, back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, or, as the Green Man reckons it, September 12th, 1971. Some of the fellows seated at the bar might have been seniors when I was a freshman; some might have been freshman when I was a senior. Some might be recent arrivals, local vendors and service providers. Presence, recognition, and casual exchanges, some of the lubricants that help society to function.

Hoisting the pint in my hand, I considered that other lubricant as well. Fermented beverage. Yeast-shit. As best archaeology can tell us, around 9000 years olde, produced in every culture other than arctic. A mixed blessing; I remember nights so intoxicated that, no, I really don't remember them at all. Under its influence, relationships may be severed. A number of my compatriots have been pulled from their vehicles, and failing to recite the alphabet, backwards, standing on one foot and alternating nose-touches, joined that expensive club of those driven under the influence.

But alcoholic drink has also facilitated the sharing of tragedy and complication, of celebration and entertainment, and has sometime strengthened the bonds of companionship. As best the tales tell, from antiquity to modernity, it has ever been thus. Having myself tended bar, I understand the admixture of personalities and the beverage imbibed. I have heard tales of days gone by; of the secret underground conduits before Repeal; of the extended living-room on every corner, first to offer radio, and then, television, to gather after long weary weeks of manual labour and be entertained by Fibber McGee and Molly; to cheer, or jeer, events in the House that Ruth Built; to hear a President's Call to Arms as the American fleet burned at Oahu. My father recollected being sent as a child to the corner to fetch a pail of beer; my Ur-aunt told of the gathering place where recent immigrants of foreign tongue could have their documents translated while nursing a ouiskey and cigar. I have visited taverns where Patriots quaffed brandy and rum, and plotted revolution; so it has been, whether it was Roman pub or German brauhaus, or earlier, rude village huts with bitter and clotted brews.

If one day man is settled on Luna, a flask will accompany. NASA prohibits alcohol in orbit, but are the cosmonauts so Puritan?

As I write, an aromatic amber fluid glimmers beside me in a very small glass. Sip, and revise. Reminisce, sip, and consider. One of the most mixed of Blessings; a tasty treat, a lethal draught. Stop, when good sense reminds you. Buy a round when your pocket is full. But always attend to your companions; the dates may change, but the human patterns remain.

2008-10-27T17:34:00.000-07:00

OFF BY JUST A FEW YEARS ...

I was surfing the Net last night and ran across a bit of nostalgia dating back to when I was Eleven years olde and attending Parochial school. My grandparents were Polish immigrants, and the Catholic Church was a brooding presence in my life, even though I only attended Kindergarten and First Grade at that school. There was an Awareness that you were always being Watched, you were always being Judged, and all the angels forfend if you were to die with a blemish on your soul!

You could burn forever!!

There were fearsome nuns to insure that the children didn't step out of line, there was the sharp sting of the pointer-stick -- suffering is noble-- , there was attendance at Mass among the images of the Tortured Christ, and, of course, there was the public humiliations before your peers if you weren't sufficiently obedient and might dare to Question Authority. However!

There were the comic-books!

WHAT!? say you? In a Catholic School?? Strange as it sounds... yes. This was a particular double-bind for me. The reason that I had so much friction with Sister Leticia was that I apparently "acted above myself;" I was quite literate in First Grade, far beyond the Dick and Jane primers the rest of my classmates were just learning. The reason? Well, not only did my parents read to me regularly, but when a neighbor's mother bought him his (weekly) comics, she bought two: one for her to read to him, and one for him to look at the pictures. Every week they gave me one set of those comics. Action Comics. Batman. Superman. World's Finest. Wonder Woman. Justice League of America.

A side-effect of reading these fantastic titles was that I picked up factoids that widened my horizons. Nuclear fission. The Age of Dinosaurs. The Golden Age of Greece. Apparently, not things that an eight-year old is supposed to know about. So, I was punished. Intelligence is bad. But as I mentioned, however...

There was a comic book produced exclusively for parochial schools, and it was called Treasure Chest : Fun and Facts. It was a Catholic-oriented publication for children, and all-American, anti-Communist besides. You could read visual biographies of the Popes, and the Saints; it would illustrate Catholic dogma (the difference between mortal and venial sins is that the former could see you burning in Hell); it had mildly amusing, non-sequitar, pun-oriented strips told in six panels; and it carried biographies of sports heroes. One of the most interesting aspects of the magazine, though, was that it was relatively egalitarian in its presentation of the heroes and icons, although their race and ethnicities were not ignored. Jessie Owens and Jackie Robinson, and Hispanic missionaries rising to advance their people and raise their communities up despite humble beginnings and prejudice. In America, with Faith, and Hard Work, anything was possible.

Although I left Catholic School after First Grade (in a controversy that is another tale) and my family moved to another state, my relatives continued to send me the monthly issues of Treasure Chest for years. And in 1964, a story ran across several issues explaining the process by which our President is selected by postulating the campaign of 1976. I did not really remember that series until the initial nostalgic link beginning this diary reminded me, but then, oh how it came rushing back! It was quite progressive for its day, and its theme concerned social justice and the American Dream. It was preaching to the children of 1964 who would be voting in 1976, and it was clearly a challenge and a call to justice.

That was thirty-two years ago, so its arrival may be late, but this parochial comic book did try to be on the right side of history. So, however it came about, in the spirit of Hope and Change, may I just say : "GOD BLESS AMERICA!"

2008-07-28T13:17:00.000-07:00

RANDOM JOTTINGS

Things That Are Wrong

A few weeks ago I was in a local pub, sipping a cool one and dealing with some spicy wings, with not a care in the world ( a temporary condition, to be sure, but I'll take 'em when I can get 'em). Within moments, however, my harmony turned to consternation. A fellow and two women, all in their early thirtys, came in with him carrying a baby. They took a table and acquired a highchair, reached into a diaper bag... and took out a portable DVD player. Set it infront of the child. Turned on "Dora the Explorer." And promptly ignored the video-mesmerized child for the duration of the meal.

They could be engaging the child, teaching her positive interactions and public social skills. It's called modeling; but instead, the subject of this benign neglect is learning how to turn her focus away from the real world, and focus on flickering lights and colours. To be acted upon rather than being a participant. Her parents are helping American Media turn her into a good little consumer.

I consider this more than sad; it's tragic.

***

Parental neglect, if not abuse, can, of course, begin prior to birth as well.

I just returned from a week at the shore, and enjoyed many long strolls on the beach. During one vigorous walk, I passed a young woman, probably in her mid-20's, with two toddlers in tow, and the curve of her belly indicated that a third was on the way. They paused in their hike so that mom could pull a pack of cigarettes (Newport) from where they were tucked between bikini and hip, and lit one up before proceeding on.

They do grow them stupid these days, don't they? Now, recently, I saw a movie of my own mother at a Christmas party in 1952. She had a Manhattan in one hand and a smouldering Kent in the other. Since I was born in February 1953, you will understand that I was being subject to her vices at that party as well. But, that was 55 years ago, and perhaps ignorance is an excuse.

No longer. Yet, I know at least three women at work who, over the last ten years, chain-smoked during one to three pregnancies.

A blog is certainly a place to be opinionated and presumptuous, so let me suggest, bluntly, that if a parent cannot refrain from their vices for nine months, they are not tremendous candidates for parenthood. They cannot pretend to have never gotten the medical memos, the advice from their OB/GYNs. Frankly, they don't care enough to practice some restraint.

Strike one, kid; and you haven't even been born yet. Lots of luck.

2008-04-03T17:02:00.000-07:00

What They Don't Teach
in School

Actually, there's a whole lot of things that American education doesn't teach; where does one start? It's another broken piece of societal infrastructure that appears less interested in teaching our children how to think, than it is what to think. This mirrors the state of research; we're only interested in research that leads to new marketable products, not "basic research" into general principles with no immediate application.

What set off this rant is my daughter's second encounter with being assigned a 7th grade "group project." Several months ago, while studying Indians of New York State, she was partnered with two classmates to research and model an Iroquois village. The other two argued back and forth, goofed around, and the bottom line was, she did the bulk of the work herself. This has now reoccured in a new project, with two new partners, utilizing the ocean liner "Titanic" as a focus for developing schedules, menus, and manifests, all part of another NYS educational initiative on the use of documentation and source materials. The partners were (apparently) supposed to come up with some information that she was supposed to utilize in a "T-chart;" despite her reportedly "bugging" them for their contribution over the last two weeks, they have not delivered, and the project is due tomorrow.

Now, I chastised her for not learning (despite prior admonitions) that you cannot wait until the evening before the due date; we recently dealt with the fiasco of trying to produce pastries for her French class that were time-consuming and required material that we don't commonly stock! I emphasized that she should have let her teacher know that her "partners" were not keeping up their end of the project; but, exactly what was their end?? How was that decided? What were the expectations and time-frames?

I have tried to remain an involved partner in my daughter's education, and I have never heard any of the curricula including group-work and process. 'But, but, it's only the second year of junior high school!!' Yes, but the teachers are clearly expecting their charges to work together as if it is a natural, internal instinct. Why then do their sports coaches have to struggle to teach them how to function as a team? Haven't the teachers been required to read The Lord of the Flies?

I worked in middle-management in a human service agency for a number of years, and there are skill-sets that can be taught to promote creative group-think, filter ideas, organize, negotiate, assign, schedule, and reach conclusions. There are processes that can be labeled, printed on hand-outs and practiced, and they do not need to be cerebral, college-level theses. They can be plain, and practical, ready-to-use with your family, your church, club, or other civic organization.

But these skills need to be taught, and their practice, monitored and shaped. The teacher, as a good manager, needs to present the concepts, set up the initial groups, and guide the students in who does what, when, and establish time-frames for the operational steps to be completed. It isn't magic, it is learning a procedure and following the steps. Children, and adults, both; some will take to the process, and some will sigh and comply in a minimal fashion. Natural leaders and followers will emerge, sergeants and middle-manager will find their niches, and there will always be some dead-weight to deal with.

If we expect our society to work together and address its day-to-day problems, not just its crises, these sort of skills need to be taught just as surely as are basic math and language skills. They are necessary for the functioning of a democracy, otherwise we will revert to instinctual, dog-eat-dog, survival of the strongest, authoritarian structures.

... which, come to think about it, explains a lot. Hidden agendas, anyone?

2008-04-01T21:23:00.000-07:00

RANDOM JOTTINGS

Out and About

I've acquired a "new" computer. It's an IBM Aptiva, a mini-tower, with an AMD K6-2/500 MHz processor, 64 MB of Memory, a 13 GB hard drive, and a CD burner. Primitive technology, huh? But the thing is, I got it for free! At the dump!

It's no piece of trash, really, it obviously had a good home. No dents, jelly-fingerprints or scratches, little dust-buildup inside the case. I plugged it in, pressed the button, and it booted right up to Windows 98. The previous owner had cleared out all of his documents and data (although his name is on the Start Menu). I will be upgrading the memory to 128 MB, wiping the hard drive, and installing Windows XP on the wee beastie, and it will be perfectly serviceable.

So why was it disposed of? From the icons left on the Desktop and Start Menu, I assume that the owner was not a power-user; America On-Line, various Jump-Start educational children's CDs, Microsoft Office suite, typical household fare.

But it is not the latest and greatest, and Americans must utilize their disposable income (or bottomless credit) to acquire that. Otherwise, how would you play "Dark Metal Raging Doom XXIII" with 4-dimensional graphics rendered in the 20 Billion colours (of which we can only see 10 percent or so), practicing on a cutting-edge consumer simulator the deadly reflexes that will come in so handy when we need to lob Smart Bombs™ into Iran, or Pakistan, or Waziristan, or Angola, or...

I'll just note that this casually-disposed of computer certainly has far more processing power that it took to get Apollo 11 to the Moon in 1969; they would have been in awe of this little tower.

In honour of America's material propensity, I dedicate the following song:

2008-03-16T21:58:00.000-07:00

RANDOM JOTTINGS

Out and About

Ah, Eliot, What Have ye Done?

Stop me if you're heard this one before: in front of me in the checkout line was a... marginal... woman and her young son. He was whiny, demanding a squirt gun, and twice flung it into the shopping cart that she was unloading. "You're not getting nuthin'!" she repeated with increasing volume. The third time he put the toy into the cart, with a guttural sound, she threw the squirt gun on the checkout belt, pulling out several additional dollars to pay for it.

Anyone want to guess what she taught her son? Yeah, 'persistence pays off.' But, someday he's going to be really confused when Mom has truly had enough and smacks him one. And, of course, it will be his own fault. He shoulda learned better...

2008-03-16T10:29:00.000-07:00

The Tragedy of Immortality

I attended college back when dinosaurs still roamed the earth, and one year I took an English elective in Science Fiction. My term paper examined one of the pervading archetypes of one of my favourite authors, Roger Zelazny, that of immortality. He wrote of superhuman characters who were immortal due to their supernatural heritage; of those who were immortal due to the manipulation of biology or technology; and those whose immortality was due to a genetic fluke.

That last was the story of Conrad Nomikos in the 1965 Hugo Award-winning novel ...And Call Me Conrad (later republished as "This Immortal"). It is set in the (unspecified) future after the Earth has been devastated by nuclear war. Nomikos is Greek, and it is implied that he has been around for a loong time -- maybe as far back as Classical Greece, and he may be the inspiration for numerous heroic legends throughout the intervening centuries.

Marvelous, is it not, to have lived through three or four millenia, to see so many changes and having lived through so many adventures? But as Conrad reflects on his long life, he tells us that it is mostly a process "of saying goodbye." To be immortal in a changing world means that everyone he knows and cares about dies; his familiar haunts, the streets, the cities, crumble to dust. Even the landscape changes. He tells us that the only way he can cope is to "keep moving," to keep putting one foot in front of the other, in the hope that dumb, capricious fate will eventually present him with a novel challenge, a cause with which to engage himself.

Such a long life can clearly be a tragedy. I wonder sometimes at the desperation of religious believers to attain an immortal afterlife, apparently in the hope that it will make up for the dissapointments, failures, suffering, and losses of this life that we are born into.

A sentiment similar to Nomikos' is expressed by the character of New York City Mayor Amalfi in James Blish's 1956 "Cities in Flight" quadrilogy, which takes us to the end of time and space, to the void of final oblivion. A number of humans, due to the discovery of "anti-agathagic" drugs, have lived to see The End; but their physicists have determined that they might be able to seed new universes to replace the one destroyed. Those last people are given a strict order as to how they should vent their space suit's atmosphere, how they should dismantle their suits and send their mass into the Void, and to finally press an explosive charge attached to their bodies to scatter the constituent elements from which new matter may precipitate.

Amalfi takes a different approach. I must paraphrase here, unfortunately; but he expects that his companions, in their long years of habits, in their fear and uncertainty, will follow the instructions absolutely. But he feels that he has "ridden the bolts" out of the old universe - he wants to create something new! So, he violates the Plan, simply declaring, "Let There Be Light," and activating the detonator. If I remember correctly, the final line of the series is, "And a new Universe began."

There have been movies and television programs that have touched on these themes; in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," the vampire Spike carries several centuries of regrets for poor decisions; in "Highlander," the main characters contest each other over multiple centuries seeking a supernatural "enlightenment" after the final battle. But they do not dwell overlong on the consequences of their long lives. The focus is more on the powers and perils that have accrued them.

But a new program examines the personal cost of immortality, and I am hooked. It is entitled New Amsterdam, a detective show set in New York City. But the hook is the central character, John Amsterdam (Nikolaj Coster Waldau), an immortal born in Holland in the early 1600's, and one of the initial colonists of Manhattan Island.

Now, I generally despise the Fox channel because of what they present masquerading as "news;" sound bytes presented out of context, jingo, propaganda, and outright lies, all presented for viscious, voyeuristic entertainment (in my (not-so) humble opinion, of course). New Amsterdam, however, seems to have a very human soul, as it follows John on a quest whereon he reflects on his experiences and utilizes the many skills that he has learned over a four-hundred year lifespan.

In 1642, John gave his life to save a native American from a colonist's sword. In repayment, he is resurrected and given immortality in order to obtain a special gift: finding his One True Love. Once they "join their souls," he will regain his mortality so that he may enjoy a normal life with his beloved.

For truly, despite his wealth of knowledge -- he has obtained a dozen prestigious degrees -- despite his skills honed over the centuries -- despite the many people he has known, and the incredible changes he has seen -- life has lost its savor. He no longer names his pets, he gives them a number. He is cynical, and insular. He approaches all women, wondering, 'Is she the One? Is She?

While he chases a petty criminal through the subways of New York, Amsterdam appears to suffer a heart attack, but he awakens with the certain knowledge that She must have been near. But, how to find her? If he finds her, how to woo her?

With the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam transforming into the English-dominated city of New York, thence into an international metropolis, the changes in period and culture, mores and expectations, serve as as the frame for John's memories and experiences in collision with the fulfilment of that long-ago promise: finding his True Love.

Can't you tell, I like it very much?

Check it out.

2008-03-10T23:19:00.000-07:00

The MOST DIVISIVE ISSUE:
SEXUALITY, and the FALL from GRACE

A recent diary on the Democratic political blog Daily Kos regarding New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's fall from grace by patronizing an escort/prostitute raised some questions regarding which I have mixed feelings. Oh, yes, I am a heteromale -- although I like to think of myself as a 'sensitive New Age kinda guy,'I do have a Y Chromosome, which may make a difference in my considerations.

Beyond pretty much any other issue, I think that the issue of sexuality is one of the most divisive that there is. One that is, I suspect, insolvable at the core. The social and emotional components of our expectations seem to have little to do with the biological drives, and appear to be just a rough cultural overlay as to how the biological exchange occurs. Those might synch up with some recent (possibly biological) evolutionary tendencies toward "altruistic" or cooperative behaviours, but although these ethics are highly emotionally charged, I see little historical evidence that they have mastered our biological imperatives.

Simple animal facts: most males of most species are larger and stronger, enabling them more often to get their way against the smaller and weaker, including both women, and competing males. Females in most species give off some "signals" (often pheromones, maybe even in humanity) from time to time. Males become excited, and seek activities that result in the release of that excitement.

Necessary biological side effect: reproduction. Pregnant females, and females with dependent offspring, are more vulnerable and need security, i.e., the provision of defense against predators, shelter, and sufficient nutrition. Various strategies develop to keep a person or group - usually male - around who can provide for those needs,including providing further sexual gratification.

Have I missed anything?

What do men biologically want of women? The pleasure of release of the stimulation. (Other gratifying add-on niceties are appreciated, too.) Is this "objectification" and "dehumanization?" Does this make our intrinsic biology evil? Or, is evil something that can only be determined from a cultural perspective?

So: we seem to have reached a state of cultural evolution where we (or at least, we "Liberals") believe in an intrinsic worth of (most) individuals, and that exchanges between people should be as non-coercive as possible, relatively respectful, and "fair") and I'm not about to try to define that last element at this time!). The rules of these exchanges are heavily indoctrinated, are encoded in both overt and covert contracts, and reinforced by various levels of punishment for transgression. But often, as to the levy of consequences... "it depends on what your definition of is, is." Patriarchy and power mostly still hold sway. To deny that is, I think, to deny reality.

But I see two basic problems regarding sexual exchange and the respect for individual and group sexual human rights: first, "One Rule" does not rule them all. Even in one nation, there are micro-conflicts of culture. If all parties are consenting to some sort of exchange, is it legitimate? How many removed from being "hurt" (and I am right now not talking about physical harm; let's just consider emotional, social, or financial repercussions) is the boundary between a legitimate and an illegitimate exchange? Hurt your spouse and our children: one level. Embarrass your relatives, your neighborhood? A community who may or may not know anything about you but for "what I read in the papers?" The national and international stage?

There may be impediments to some people obtaining gratification: if you can't effectively compete, are you required to accept self-stimulation as the only legitimate outlet? Some people have higher or lower sex drives; are they permitted only a certain number of sexual acts with certain valorized partners? Is monogamy all that is allowable? Is "Free Love" just a fevered hippie pipe dream? What about consenting expressions of perversity?

I think it is clear that we must consider enslavement, and coercion by physical, mental, and emotional abuse, and other non-consensual acts as illegitimate, condemnatory, and enforceably illegal. But what about unpopular or marginal choices? Should a consenting adult be allowed to participate in activities frowned upon by the majority's morality, to engage in risky behaviours, or make unpopular choices? Can a woman legitimately make a choice to participate in sexual exchanges for financial remuneration (for the financial medium grants one power in our civilization)?

Because of the history and structure of our (patriarchal) cultures, do women have authentic freedom to make such choices? Hmm, escort service at $5000.- an hour, turn X number of tricks, invest in that stock portfolio, get out of the biz in Y number of years, vs., work at a (perhaps) thankless public school teaching position for $45,000.- a year gross, minus inflation and rising property taxes?

How much truth is found in stereotypic statements like these?

"I claim that rape exists any time sexual intercourse occurs when it has not been initiated by the woman, out of her own genuine affection and desire." -- Robin Morgan, MS. Magazine Editor

"Heterosexual intercourse is the pure, formalized expression of contempt for women's bodies... Rape is the primary heterosexual model for sexual relating. Rape is the primary emblem of romantic love. Rape is the means by which a woman is initiated into her womanhood as it is defined by men. ... Rape, then, is the logical consequence of a system of definitions of what is normative. Rape is no excess, no aberration, no accident, no mistake -- it embodies sexuality as the culture defines it." --
Andrea Dworkin

"No woman should be authorized to stay at home to raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one." -- Simone de Beauvoir, author of "The Second Sex"

"Being a housewife is an illegitimate profession... The choice to serve and be protected and plan towards being a family-maker is a choice that shouldn't be. The heart of radical feminism is to change that." - Vivian Gornick, author, University of Illinois

Some scholars have suggested that "Romantic Love," and presumably, "hot" sexuality, is a historical aberration, and that most unions -- even the "consensual" ones -- should be viewed as practical affairs. To share resources, and to allocate role-duties (of which men have traditionally gotten the lion's share).

I certainly know women who seem to genuinely enjoy their sexuality; should our values be concerned with establishing above-board contracts, spelling out expectations? or is that cold, callous, and objectifying? How should we ponder sexuality: focus on the pleasure, or the serious responsibility? How obtainable are the idealistic notions? What if the spouses "turn a blind eye" to affairs, because other than in the bedroom, they've "got it made?" Are these all dupes who are disempowering themselves?

Various pundits have noted that the rich and powerful, the celebrities and the politicians, are 'not like us.' No, they are just like us. This biological conflict is at the root of our humanity.

Actions have consequences, no matter how some try to minimize them, ignore them, or spin them. Those consequences may be of a greater, or lesser, degree. They may precipitate chain reactions that may range from annoying to disastrous. It would be nice to have hard and fast answers, like some
religions believe were enunciated by a Supreme Personality, writ in fire, or graven in stone. How pleasantly simple! But few of us Liberal-types live comfortably in that world.

I have tried to couch this diary with questions and qualifiers; I don't know what the Truth is, nor do I want to promote here any position other than non-coercion and respect. But sexual self-expression and the circumstances thereof so often colours our political perspective, that I think we should ponder this well.

2008-03-09T10:52:00.000-07:00

JAZZ MEN

I'm sure that I must have heard jazz in the background of my childhood, likely performers like Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, and Ella Fitzgerald, as well as closely-associated music from Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, and Ray Charles. However, until my practice wife introduced me to the electric fusion of the Mahavishnu Orchestra in the mid-1970's, I was not particularly conscious of the genre.

One of the groups that we then discovered was "Return to Forever," lead by keyboardist extraordinaire Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea. Best, yet, we had the chance to see him perform numerous times at the Summer Jazz Festivals at the Saratoga Performing Arts Centre.

After the wife and I went our separate ways, I had the opportunity to see Chick play a variety of duets and ensembles at different venues. One of his favorite companions was vibraphonist Gary Burton, who, he relates, met Chick at a jazz festival in Germany thirty-five years ago when the organizers asked for volunteers for a jam session, and they were the only two to agree!

Over the years, my opportunities to go out and see live music have declined; a new wife, a child, a mortgage, 'workin' for the man,' that sort of stuff. I've missed it. 2008 has seen an upturn in my listening fortunes, however; in January I took my daughter to see "Big Brother and the Holding Company," who gave the world Janis Joplin, and in February got out to see a regional reggae group, "Crucial Massive." I also saw an advertisement from the Bardavon 1869 Opera House in Poughkeepsie: coming on Friday March 7th: Chick Corea and Gary Burton!! My daughter is now of an age of reasonable self-sufficiency, so I had the fine opportunity to go on a date with my wife for an evening of jazz.

I must admit that I have no understanding for the specifics of music; I have somewhat of a "tin ear," and the language of this art, like higher mathematics, is beyond me. But I know what I like! Some music even translates itself into visual phenomenon for me, curves and arabesques, colours and syncopated flashes, and that enhances my enjoyment. And Chick and Gary are virtuosos! Beside which, the two are obviously close friends; they were not only playing music for their audience, they were playing with each other with their music. They joked, told snippets of stories, they percussed the piano together, and on the encore Chick and Gary both played the vibes together!

They performed selections from their original duet album "Crystal Silence," as well as from their new "More Crystal Silence," and "No Mystery." "Alegría in Hawaii" was a flamenco-based tune, and they shaped pieces around Alexander Scriabin's "Preludes 4 and 6." Jazz masters such as Bud Powell, Bill Evans' "Waltz for Debbie," and Thelonius Monk's "Sweet and Lovely" were source material for other numbers. Such masters of their instruments, such attention to their craft! Gary's mallets flew so fast as to strobe, Chick threw back his head, eyes shut, mouthing the rhythm and stomping his feet! The audience was entranced, and entirely appreciative. And, all too soon, it was over.

As we walked back to the car in a steady rain, my wife commented at how fine a performance it had been, but she wondered, "How did they get so old?" Well, we've all been around the sun thirty-five times since I first discovered them, dear! For the record, Chick Corea is 66.

But this I know with certainty: they made me happy. How refreshing! I've got to do this more often!

2008-02-17T22:07:00.000-08:00

Jumping Genres

A couple of weeks ago I saw the trailer for a movie scheduled for a February 14th release titled "Jumper." Using the Power of teh Google, I found the trailer and it appealed to me: the coming-of-age story of David, who discovers that he can "jump," i.e., teleport, and the world of instant gratification that it opens up for him! But, there are enemies as well, hunting down him, and others like him.

Another hit Google returned was on Wikipedia, and, reading that entry, I discovered that the movie was based on a 1992 novel by Steven Gould, and that there was a 2005 sequel titled "Reflex." The next day I bought both books, and the first novel, "Jumper" caused me to do something that I've not done in years; read it entirely in one day! ('What do you mean, "It's 5 a.m.?!?") I spent the following three days on "Reflex."

"Jumper" can be considered a "juvenile" science fiction, as were many of the early Robert Heinlein novels. It follows the protagonist, Davy,traumatized by an alcoholic, violently abusive father, and his mother's abandonment of their family, discovering what his newfound power can do. He always seems to be running from something, yet still carries his pain with him as surely as any probationer's tracking bracelet, and he is alone. Davy seems to be the only one who can do what he does, and although there is no fanatic organization pursuing him as in the film, the National Security Administration is very interested in him.

I let my 13-year old read "Jumper." I have not allowed her to read "Reflex," a much more mature, and often downright brutal novel. It picks up David's story ten years later; he is married, and occasionally does "good" covert work for the NSA; but, it appears that there are Byzantine intrigues between various factions in Homeland Security; and one of those groups decides to make Davy more... cooperative. And they have a rather nasty way of achieving their end. In the meantime, Davy's wife Millie is bored, frustrated, and wants a child - something Davy is reluctant to do -, but when he goes missing, she sets off on her own journey of discovery. It's spy versus spy, with superheroics.

Gould writes these books from the first-person perspective, and, I think, successfully gets into the heads of a troubled, but powerful, adolescent, a frantic wife whose world is turned upside down, and a young man struggling to survive and escape his tormentors. In the sequel, he splits the narrative between David and Millie; some reviewers have complained that they couldn't much tell the difference between Davy and his wife's "voices;" I happen to disagree. Her journey may parallel her husband's adolescent discoveries, but it is more mature, and for a deliberate purpose: she must negotiate a dangerous world to find her missing husband. David, by contrast, it trying to escape, not his younger demons, but very real and dangerous powers that will destroy that which they cannot control.

It was also interesting reading two novels written thirteen years apart back to back; not only has Gould honed his writing talents, not only have the characters matured, but the temporal contrast was not only displayed in major world events, but in the casual details. In 1992's "Jumper," there is a brief visit to the World Trade Center, which is mentioned as "the site of the WTC" in the sequel. Also, in "Reflex," disposable cell phones are ubiquitous, but there is only one such reference in "Jumper," and it is a "cellular phone" housed in a limousine. (This is rather akin to my re-reading Heinlein's 1961 "Stranger in a Strange Land," which I first read in 1966, in 2002; although it is set in the late-21st century, there is not a computer to be found, and almost everyone seems to smoke cigarettes!)

I saw the movie today, and enjoyed it fairly well. Some critics have complained about the "woodenness" of lead actor Hayden Christensen's performance as David, and although there are no Oscar-nominations looming, it was played well enough. He was not the tormented seventeen-year old of the original novel; but the film didn't focus too heavily on those aspects in any case, other than casting him as a shy high school loser. The "Paladins," religious fanatics who have been hunting down Jumpers, who they accuse of usurping God's powers, since the Middle Ages, are an old plot device. But they do provide the foils for David, and his more-experienced, reluctant Jumper ally, Griffin, to battle. And innocents can pay a high price when Powers do battle.

I will likely buy the DVD when it comes out, and try to catch the pieces of dialog that I missed. The only real complaint I had, where my "suspension of disbelief" cracked, involved David's final scene with his lost-and-found mother.

The movie was an enjoyable afternoon matinée; the novel, and it's sequel, I highly recommend. "Reflex," particularly, leaves one wondering about the darkest side of government; we may think that we see evil on the nightly news and the morning headlines; but what if those in the camera's eye and on record are only "middle-management?" That is a truly disturbing thought.

2008-02-04T21:59:00.000-08:00

Beatin' the MidWinter's Bluez
Oh, the secular call it "Groundhog's Day," and the Catholics, "Candlemass." The Celts called it Imbolc, a 'cross-quarter day' on the Solar calendar celebrating lambing-season and the first signs of Spring. In my Tribe, however, we call February 2nd MidWinter's Day, and we've been celebrating it pretty continuously for 27 years. HOKAH-HEY! as we like to say.

There are neo-pagan elements to our gatherum and celebration, but the fact of the matter is, it's a party in the mid of Winter to shake of dem Bluez that Seasonally Affect us, to ritually get beyond last year's karma, and to be forward-looking (once the fuzzy heads have cleared).

How'd this all come about? Well...

Twenty-seven years ago my best friend and I had just ended relationships with our mates, and were feeling kinda down. It was cold, and the days were short, and would it ever be warm and light again, and could we throw off that funk?? And I recollected an event that my elder cousin had created sometime in the middle 1960's : he'd discovered this book by Finnish author Tove Jannson called "Moominland Midwinter." The Moomin were cutesy trolls who hibernated through the Winter, but one young Moomin woke up to discover an alien, icy land that had transformed the familiar landscape into a realm inhabited by people of the night. And on one grand evening, they would kindle a bonfire to chase away the Winter and beckon forth a new Spring!

My cousin, the Ur-father to us now, but an awkward adolescent then, wrapped a gas-soaked rag on a stick for a processional torch, and used a cardboard tube as a trumpet, and he held a private ceremony in his back yard. And so it lay fallow for fifteen years!

But my buddy the Artificer and I assembled a circle of friends - much of the core of our current Tribe - to light a bonfire, consume intoxicants, play a little music, and generally make merry. It was several years before we got the bonfire quite right, a brightly burning pyre rather than a smoldering, smoking, heap. But, from those clumsy beginning, a ceremony has evolved, attracting sometimes as many as fifty people, with sometimes an international flavour, from France, and Brazil, and Czechoslovakia. Come Together! Chase the Winter! Hokah-Hey! (That cry actually seems to mean something in Lakota Sioux, but Iself cribbed it from a comic book, "Tales of the Beanworld.")

The Ceremony was not written as a script, was accrued from bright ideas over the years. In fact, I am of the opinion that is you throw together enough props, people will naturally do something with them. And, they have! These are not done at each and every ceremony, but may be ritually acted out at many:

the Gatherum : eat, drink, and socialize! don't forget to sign the Register!
the Search for the Sunbearer: who will don the Garb, and light the First Torch? Virgins and Noobs especially valued!
the Reading from the Book of Moominland MidWinter!
the Procession to the (unlit) bonfire:
calling forth the Sunbearer to Light the Circle of torches, then unto the pyre!
chanting, singing, ringing bells. pounding on drums. wishing well and burning karma. general silliness and milling about.
the Passing of the Bread and Cheese.
the Attack of the MidWinter's Beast! calling forth a Warrior to save us! a battle! mayhem! and with the Head of the Beast, he comes gallumphing back. Much celebration!
Wax Magic! a fiery ceremony challenging the Winter Spirits with demonstrations of fuel-air explosives!

more feasting, more intoxicants, and slow farewells, until the next gathering...

And so was our experience just two days past. The days are lengthening, and a hint of Spring is in the air. Success! Give Praise unto the Most High for the turning of the Seasons! So, let us reflect on those Finnish lines, read by the Ur-father himself:

2007-09-02T10:29:00.000-07:00

Counterstrike on Conservative Chain (e)Mail

Maybe you got the email forwarded to you by your very-traditional cousin Sue or your co-worker who loves what Bushco has done for his stock portfolio. Maybe you don't recognize exactly whom it is forwarding it, but you live dangerously and opened it anyway. So you are treated to a steaming tirade of conservative bigotry and self-righteous sound bytes, couched in fine, patriotic jingo.

I hope you all know that in many cases you can do more than just hit "Delete!"

'Those dang illegal immigrants! Not only do they want our jobs and our health care, they want us to sing the National Anthem in Spanish!!' or 'Here are pictures of our heroic troops in Iraqistan spreading freedom and democracy; our camo-clad kids are cuddling kittens, weeping over letters from home, and playing with little tiny children in the rubble strewn streets. Write to your Congressman and tell him to Support Our President and give him everything he asks for, because our troops deserve the best!' Oh, and if you are a real American, forward this to all of your family and friends!

These emails are written in an aw-shucks, folksy style, could be the neighbors next door, why they're even replete with clumsy misspellings! Maybe they were virally-released by some Republican intern, or maybe some common wingnut with poo on his boots actually did pound a keyboard and hit "Send." Who knows?

Now, normally, most of us will mutter "Asshole!" and delete it and try to deal with the "BREAKING!" news from Truthout or Alternet, or some such, unless we've had a bad day and the letter has pushed our particular hot-button. Then we reply to the sender and give them a piece of our minds, castigating them for their ignorance and berating them for sending us this trash.

Iself just got the following chain email:

Urine Test:
Like a lot of folks in this state, I have a job.
I work, they pay me. I pay my taxes and the government distributes my
taxes as they see fit.
In order to get that paycheck. I am required to pass a random urine
test, which I have no problem with.
What I do have a problem with is the distribution of my taxes to people
who don't have to pass a urine test. Shouldn't one have to pass a urine
test to get a welfare check, because I have to pass one to earn it for
them? Please understand, I have no problem with helping people get back
on their feet.
I do, on the other hand, have a problem with helping someone sit on
their butt.
Could you imagine how much money the state would save if people had to
pass a urine test to get a public assistance check?

Pass on if you agree

Now, how do we get this on a bill to make it LAW?????????????

My finger hovered over the delete key, but then I thought back over the last several weeks. I do some small computer service and repair on the side, and several of my customers have done things that indicate that they're too stupid to really use computers. Plus, they forward jokes to me that have lengthy, multiple copies of the same joke in the forwarding because they have no idea how to edit an email before they send it. Curious, instead of "Reply," I chose "Reply All," and was rewarded with over a dozen addresses to which this spam had been sent in addition to mine.

Wanting to strike while the ions were hot, I typed the following:

Hello Boys and Girls -- the money line from this brilliant idea is:
"Could you imagine how much money the state would save if people had to
pass a urine test to get a public assistance check?" The implication appears to be that many of the people receiving public assistance - that nasty old Welfare check - are drug addicts. Probably People of Color, too. Justifiable outrage for the hard-working , over-taxed Middle-Class employee.

Just like when Ronald Reagan decried the Welfare Queens purchasing Cadillacs.

Only problem is, most recipients of Public Assistance are children, the elderly, the disabled, and people have fallen off of the edge of Working Poor. Use the Google!

Yeah, urine tests for public assistance would probably snag some junkies; but a windfall savings?
I don't think so.

But, go on and pass this along; everybody needs to feel self-righteous from time to time, don't they.

And I hit Send.

I was pleasantly surprised not to get a lot of pathetic defenses and righteous conservative anger. Instead I got:

If you haven't been unemployed you should try it soon, and if you've never been on welfare you should try that too.

I would hardly describe being on welfare, or the underlying cause--
unemployment as an opportunity to "sit on your butt." Anytime I've been out of work it has been some of the most stressful periods in my life, and it is a full time job to perfect your resume and check the job boards, and all stupid shit one is busy with to try to rejoin the working class.

But I can't understand why we are even talking about such insignificant
issue, making the poor suffer a little more, make just a little harder, as
if they could all just get up and go to work tomorrow, with clean pee-pee
too.

Much more obscene is the degree to which we are paying CEO's 400% more than before, the lose of unions to organize workers so they wouldn't lose their jobs to workers in Thailand because they can work for 2 cents an hour, or the disenfranchisement of the American work place with American worker. Fuck 'em if they want good pay and benefits, will move all the jobs off shore.

and

ON second thought, I think we should have a urine test, but it would be to identify who the fuck has been pissing all over the constitution. Those who have should have their eyes pulled out and made to sit in bathroom stall next to a bare-footed Senator Craig.

Ya wanna pass a bill, how about a bill that no war (declared or undeclared
and that means clandestant)can be engaged in unless the people engaged in it first send their own family members in as fodder. Send the sons and
daughters of industry, the offspring of the corporate captains.

I hear a lot of those welfare folk are Iraq war vets.............with PTSD
and appointment for 4 months ahead.

Lets drive the car off the cliff and attack Iran.

And finally, a reply from a fellow who I actually know in Colorado, who is a conservative, who added a YouTube link which most of us have seen by now: Dick Cheney v.1994, explaining why we should not overthrow Saddam Hussein! It warmed my heart: The Truth is Out There, and some people are actually - slowly - getting it!

Let me end by suggesting that what is necessary to keep the sociopolitical changes going from conservative lies toward progressive considerations is confrontation, confrontation, and, when that fails, more confrontation. Always remember that "the Truth crushed to the ground will rise again and no lie can last forever."

2007-05-01T23:58:00.000-07:00

AutoMorbidity

While traveling in the Southwest nearly fifteen years ago something along the roadsides caught my eye. At scattered sites along hundreds of miles of roads there were rude crosses planted next to the pavement, sometimes with a spray of flowers twined around them, or a votive candle beside it. I had my suspicions, but eventually asked a clerk or a waitress, and they confirmed that what I observed was a Hispanic tradition of marking the place where a loved-one died in an automobile wreck.

I live in the Northeast, and over the intervening years the phenomena has spread; in my little county I have seen dozens of such memorials, ranging from a cross and a yellow ribbon tied to a twisted guardrail, to elaborate shrines constructed from planter boxes with flowers, flags, candelabras, and tapestries stretched between trees depicting NASCAR-martyr Dale Earnhardt and his car (presumably the deceased was a fan).

But, beyond the ostentation of some of these displays, I am disturbed by the rituals that I have noted over several years’ of observation. Helium-filled mylar balloons bob from the end of bright ribbons proclaiming “Happy Father’s Day!” I have seen cards tacked to poles, “Happy Birthday!” and “On Our Anniversary.” Fresh flowers, and someone stopped by to LIGHT the candles. I just consider these morbid; isn’t this where people DIED in sudden mechanical impacts? Don’t you have graves, or urns, at which to solemnize your lost companion?

Why do they want to remember a painful termination year after year after year?

One can only imagine a spirit suddenly manifested next to the broken and torn corpse that used to be its living shell, and the disorientation it might feel. No gentle transition after preparations to ‘meet one’s Maker.’ The Tibetan Book of the Dead consists of prayers that the living recite for a week to help the newly deceased break free of the bonds of Earthly existence. I can only expect that ritual gatherings at these altars to death would have the opposite action, of SUMMONING the spirits back to the site of their final, mortal suffering. This is a Black Magic known as NECROMANCY, and it is EVIL! It is with good reason that the Navaho take their dying outside for their leave-taking from life, and abandon houses in which their loved ones have died. These are haunted places that can corrupt a living soul.

I remember a snippet of a poem or a hymn that went something like “He is not here, he did not die,” although a quick Google returned nothing that I recognized, but I approve of the sentiment. When we slip the leash of mortality, our spirit should cast free and sail bright eternity! Or, as Bob Dylan put it, “If dogs run free, why can’t we?”

Keep memorials in the heart and mind, where they belong.

2007-04-29T14:06:00.000-07:00

Joe Bruno Sez: Support Capital Punishment, Not Civil Rights!

Politicians often have a bad reputation for being advantageous and using any passionate issues to advance their own agendas or to block those of their opponents. Unfortunately, there has frequently been sufficient justification for the public's perception, particularly in the pretzel logic that Republicans employ. This tactic is now being used in a confrontation between the Executive and Legislative branches over recognizing the civil rights of gay New Yorkers.

Recently-elected Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer yesterday fulfilled a campaign pledge to provide civil marriage equality in New York State by legislation with the following provisions:

* A marriage that is otherwise valid under the law will be valid
regardless of the sex of the individuals; Government treatment, legal status, and all rights, benefits, privileges, protections or responsibilities relating to marriage will be equal for all individual parties who enter into marriage regardless of the sex of their
partner;
* No application for a marriage license will be denied on the ground that the parties are of the same, or a different, sex, and;
* In consideration of private, ethical and religious beliefs, no clergy member or religious institution will be compelled to perform any
marriage.

New York can become one of a small, but growing number of states - many in a Northeastern bloc - that have been acknowledging the same personal commitments that members of the gay community make as do their hetero brethren. However, as the New York Times notes,

Even in a progressive state like New York, this will be a steep political climb. So far, only Massachusetts has enacted a gay marriage law — after its highest court held that gay couples had a right under the State Constitution — and while there is a similar bill working its way through the Connecticut legislature, its prospects are uncertain. Civil unions or domestic partnerships involving same-sex couples are now recognized by a small but growing number of states, including Connecticut, New Jersey, Vermont, California, Hawaii and Maine.

Legislative support is uncertain; even in our Democratically-controlled State Assembly, the Speaker, Sheldon Silver, is temporizing. But, with sufficient lobbying, it may be possible to get that body to do the right thing. In the Republican-controlled Senate, however, the outlook is more dim, thanks to today's strategy by NYS Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno(R-43rd) to use a recent tragedy to deride the Governor's proposal and the moral fiber of the Assembly Democrats.

This past week in my neighboring county, a State Trooper was killed, another wounded, and a third escaped injury only because of his bullet-proof vest. The apparent assailant died in a house fire that started during the shootout, and it appears that the slain officer was a victim of 'friendly fire.' Senator Bruno has seized upon this tragedy to try to derail the Governor's initiative.

Bruno said: This governor has his priorities wrong... given the fatal shooting of a state trooper this week, Spitzer should be worried more about bringing back the death penalty for those who kill police officers. Bruno's continued opposition effectively blocks the measure from moving ahead in the state Legislature for now.

He also noted the 'Last Wednesday 97 NYS Assembly Democrats voted against an amendment to enact the death penalty for people who kill police officers.'

Now, whatever your position on the death penalty - and, I must confess, I have mixed feelings about its application when I consider premeditated murderers, torturers, or sociopathic 'mad-dogs' - Bruno's position is nothing but a blocking tactic, because I suspect that most members of our Legislature are capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time. I understand that 'blocking that kick' is a time-honoured strategy in parliamentary maneuvering. I would not have been so offended if Senator Bruno had wanted to argue about 'more complex' priorities such as the New York State economy - oh, wait, he did give it secondary placement! - but doesn't it always seem that the Republicans are so swift to exploit tragedy, fear, and suffering, to their own ends?

As Daffy puts it, 'It's death-PICABLE!'

Well, I just spent the last forty-five minutes using the Google to find the Republican/Democrat numbers in the NYS Senate, to no avail; but I know that last year, we narrowed the margin. Even though he is not in my district, I will certainly be working in the next round of elections to unseat Mr. Bruno and turn the New York State Senate Blue. I know many people in my county who flocked to my college town of New Paltz for the brief Spring in 2004, when Mayor Jason West decided to unilaterally begin marrying same-sex couples. Many of them still wear their wedding rings, as a promise that they made to each other.

It's time for New York to recognize their commitment, and to make a commitment in return, for full civil rights.

2007-01-30T18:10:00.000-08:00

Yes, Virginia, Pagans CAN
Be Fundamentalists!

I consider myself to be "a pagan;" very simply put, I find a spiritual resonance most strongly with natural phenomena, and finding my "Way" is a matter of trying to orient myself to a natural order of things. Now, my perspective on matters spiritual is not entirely that simple, but that statement is pretty close to my core beliefs.

My friends - my "Tribe" - and I have been engaging in a celebration in the beginning of February for about twenty-five years, some hoo-hah to chase away the Winter doldrums. It has evolved over the years to include a procession, lighting of torches and a bonfire, drinking, chanting, shaking bells and pounding on drums, and having a symbolic hunt of the MidWinter Beast. To acknowledge the natural rhythm of the seasons and lift our spirits.

One of our number, who has been along for the whole ride, has in the last several years become associated with a Druidic group. Now, I suspect that there has not been an unbroken tradition of Druidic ceremony in the last millennium, but never mind, whatever is meaningful to you and floats yer boat, eh?

Well, apparently it's not that simple.

Just a few days before our MidWinter Ceremonies they just sent out an email to various members of the Tribe saying:

I'm going to (the Druidic Leader's), on the full moon, and feel secure all my spiritual chickens can come home safely to roost. Whatever the heck happens at the free for all fiasco you all plan doesn't bother me anymore. My spiritual needs are covered. You truly don't have any rules about this and it has always bothered me. Think no one is watching, do you?

Well, I guess we've been set straight! Although I might quibble over "fiasco:" it is a party, after all. Oh, and as for "rules?" You mean, like, rituals? Hmm, let's see: We "Seek out the Sunbearer." There is a Gathering, a Reading, a Procession, and an Invocation. We form a united circle of torchlight lighting up the Wint'ry night, and light up a blazing pyre. We chant, ring bells, pound on drums "and make a joyful noise." If we have any tokens of bad stuff from the previous year(s) we want to be rid of, we toss it into the blaze. And then we "Summon a Warrior" to hunt down and slay the MidWinter Beast! Oh Frabjous Day!

And we feast, and we drink, and make merry. And I've noticed that this bothers a lot of fundamentalists: you're just not taking this seriously!

Well. Horned gods? Virgin births? Sprinkling of waters from special places that have been exposed to special natural phenomena or had special words spake over them in olde languages?
Death and resurrections? Yes, yes, your tales and legends and beliefs work for you, and welcome to 'em! But unless there is a Special Proving Day, they're all just our stories until then. And maybe I think a strange haircut and banging on finger cymbals is... well... strange, but that's really not for me to say. Maybe Krshna is lord. Or is that Cernunos, I forget...

The greatest irony to me is that my friend was raised in quite a straitlaced Roman Catholic tradition, and for years and years railed against the conservatism and the narrow roles of that faith. The fruit, they say, doesn't fall far from the tree. What once was a Macintosh is now a Fuji, or a Granny Smith , or...

Think no one is watching, do you?

We're all watching. But who's reflecting ?

2006-12-03T20:52:00.000-08:00

Be Careful What You Wish For...

I am an unashamed Trekkie; not a 'Trekker.' Old School, although that jargon may itself be Old School already. I watched Roddenberry's creation on a monochrome television, and though the bridge of the Enterprise was filled with knobs and dials and switches, there was marvelous technology awaiting us!

Transporters! Phasers! Tricorders! And, of course, the Communicator! Whip that little beauty out of your pocket, flip it open, and with that electronic chirrup, you could call anybody around the world, or in orbit!

They are now, of course, ubiquitous. We call them cell phones, and besides allowing us to place a call anywhere around the world - or in orbit! - they also incorporate some of the features of the bigger Tricorder. Search out databases on the Web; take pictures and movies, take notes and write text , plan your schedule, and transmit them anywhere. Have we not arrived?

The problem is, we didn't realize just how banal most conversations are. Occasionally we noticed someone ranting loudly at a partitioned pay phone kiosk; but normally, the conversations were hidden behind the walls of a house, or enclosed in a phone booth. Now, the asylum's doors have been flung wide, and generally insipid or strident pratter beseiges us on all sides.

Conversation whose boring details occupied tea parties around the kitchen table or cases of Schaeffer around the barbecue now besiege us on every sidewalk, in grocery store aisles, and at he table next to us at KFC. Once upon a time we would have judged these people talking to the atmosphere hands-free as ready for the institution, or at least, a round of psychotropic medications. 'So I told Maggie that Susie's ballet teacher had actually never taught a class of eight-year olds before, but you know how Maggie is, her little Betty won the Prancing Puff award three years ago, and now there's no talking to her...' Arguing animatedly about the MVP and inductees into the NFL Hall of Fame is an acceptable excuse for running a red light and nearly, obliviously, side-swiping me?!?

But you can't stop progress, can you?

Teachers are in a quandary; the little darlings need to be available for emergency contacts, and spend their time texting each other about who's hot, sweet, and burnt, and those of use who would like to actually listen to the dialogue at the movies need to be prepared to whine to the management or obnoxiously challenge the miscreants to shut their bloody pie holes. Because they attend as well to pre-preview entreaties on the screen to be polite as well as they oney laws about not driving while holding their cells in hand. Civility, in a word, is dead.

There are countermeasures available, although few people seem willing to avail themselves of them. After all, there are emergencies! and this is the Twenty-First Century, and I am an Olde Phart. Still, I can't help but wonder:

Did Bones ever text Spock: "U grn blded Vlkn freek! Beem this up ur @$$!"

2006-09-10T21:26:00.000-07:00

On "Patriot's Day"

Remember, Remember
Eleven September,
the Fall of the Towers,
our Nation's resolve.
Corrupted by
the Liar's agenda
his war in Iraq
dishonours us all.

bin Laden committed two evil deeds five years ago. We mourn the innocents who died that day because of his fanatacism. But he also set loose the American fanatics who were just waiting for an excuse. In memory of our dead, let us defy both.

2006-08-02T21:22:00.000-07:00

The Lifeblood of Bureaucracy

I work for a six-hundred or so employee human service agency. Organized as a not-for-profit, it suckles from the teat of public funding. The price of this lese majesty is that we must verify the allowable usage of those funds. This is right and just; there is fraud inherent in the system, and the more money changing hands, the greater the opportunity to bleed off a little bit here, a little bit there, and soon we're talking about real money.

Too often, though, the requisite oversight takes on a life of its own, with auditors assuming the role of overseers, demanding that hoops and hurdles be jumped, parsing the regulations with a razor's-edge interpretation rather than by the intent, declaring that there is no difference between error and fraud. Let us not at this time consider whether the funding provided was sufficient to support the paper verification in the first place, or whether there may be a political agenda to cripple public institutions via a thousand wounds.

It is my observation that too many agencies are complicit in complicating the documentation and thereby present easy targets to the auditors; they may be good at assisting their clientele, but they are clumsy at designing the forms and systems necessary to account for the expenditures and services. These are often prescribed by administrators thoroughly versed in the language of the regulations, but who have little actual experience in providing and documenting the services with which their personnel are charged. There is a perverse midset that seems to assume, since one piece of paper is required, three must be superior. This persepective is also convenient for management; checklists and reports substitute for supervision and training.

I would suggest that it is important to look at the role of documentation in the abstract, unconnected with pet projects or systemic paranoia (both of which, I believe, lead to excessive and redundant paperwork requirements) that seems to assume, if we just produce enought reports, the TERRIBLE THING or fear du jour can be avoided (or, at least, someone else can take the blame). We should define what the documentation is for, what it can do, and how it is best done. While I'm sure that entire schools of system analysts and time management mavens have studied this in superior detail, following are my considerations; after all, isn't it MY blog??

1) The purpose of a document is to communicate specific billing-related information and to compile information necessary to provide services.

2) Minimal, and specific, documents speed the transmission of accurate information.

3) Clumsy and excessive documentary requirements will always interfere with the provision of services.

4) Well-formatted documents use logical groupings of information to present simple forms. This makes it easier to fill in, complete, and then retrieve information.

5) Minor repetitions in a form can be useful to highlight critical information and direct the reader to a more comprehensive source of information. Excessive repetition and lengthy explanations distract from the main points.

6) No document, however formatted, can insure accuracy, safety, and security. Only ongoing training in professional performance and procedures, with consistent supervision, corrective feedback, and support, can provide the most effective services and their documentation.

7) Forms and formats should be developed by a consensus of the people who use them, subject to administrative oversight to insure compliance specifically with regulation.

After thirty-odd years as a service provider I don't think that these are particularly complex lessons to have learned or to incorporate into our systems of documentation.

Documentation (or "paperwork," for the non-digital) is an unfortunate necessity, like formalized laws and taxes. It is necessary to keep the exchange of information and finances going between the units and and levels of our society and body politic. It is a living, though somewhat amorphous entity, and it is necessary to routinely prune, revise, and apply judiscious upgrades. We all know what the neglect of our gardens leads to -- so much more so with the cultivation of bureaucracy!

And a final admonition to auditors everywhere -- when you review a file, return it to the state in which you found it!!!

2006-07-16T00:03:00.000-07:00

THE MERIT BADGES OF CIVIC DUTY

I loved Cub Scouts but despised Boy Scouts; perhaps it was the troop I was in, which seemed oriented toward machismo and the pecking order more than it was to skill development. "The Belt
Game" remains a painful memory.

But the mythology of scouting nonetheless advocates being a good scout - a good citizen. It is embedded in the Scout's Oath and Law:

On my honor I will do my best:

* To do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law
* To help other people at all times
* To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight

The Scout Law is a summary of character issues that scouts pledge to follow.

Trustworthy
A Scout tells the truth. He keeps his promises. Honesty is part of his code of conduct. People
can depend on him.

Loyal
A Scout is true to his family, Scout leaders, friends, school, and nation.

Helpful
A Scout is concerned about other people. He does things willingly for others without pay or
reward.

Friendly
A Scout is a friend to all. He is a brother to other Scouts. He seeks to understand others. He
respects those with ideas and customs other than his own.

Courteous
A Scout is polite to everyone regardless of age or position. He knows good manners make it easier for people to get along together.

Kind
A Scout understands there is strength in being gentle. He treats others as he wants to be
treated. He does not hurt or kill harmless things without reason.

Obedient
A Scout follows the rules of his family, school, and troop. He obeys the laws of his community
and country. If he thinks these rules and laws are unfair, he tries to have them changed in an
orderly manner rather than disobey them.

Cheerful
A Scout looks for the bright side of things. He cheerfully does tasks that come his way. He tries
to make others happy.

Thrifty
A Scout works to pay his way and to help others. He saves for unforeseen needs. He protects and conserves natural resources. He carefully uses time and property.

Brave
A Scout can face danger even if he is afraid. He has the courage to stand for what he thinks is
right even if others laugh at or threaten him.

Clean
A Scout keeps his body and mind fit and clean. He goes around with those who believe in living by these same ideals. He helps keep his home and community clean.

Reverent
A Scout is reverent toward God. He is faithful in his religious duties. He respects the beliefs
of others.

Scout Motto
Be prepared

Scout Slogan
Do a good turn daily

http://www.school-for-champions.com/character/boy_scouts.htm

Though some of these principles are presented in too saccharin a manner for these cosmopolitan
times, on the whole they are not bad guidelines as to the character of a good citizen.

I suspect that if you ask ten different people what makes for good citizenship, you'd get ten
different answers. Many of those answers might be rote repeatings. Good citizenship, I think, is
a value that is expressed in a personal experience, with a positive or negative reaction to one's
actions or inactions.

Ever since I've been conscious of the political process, I've considered it important to be an
active participant. Voting is the least that can be expected: not just the votes "that don't
really count" for our Congresscritters, but voting for school board elections and budgets.
Political involvement and activism includes going to hearings. Writing letters to the editor, and
being prepared to argue a perspective, even if other people don't like to hear it.

For me, giving blood is an act of good citizenship. I initally started doing so to help overcome
my fear of needles, and I have come to recognize other health benefits as well. I came to realize
that it was literally giving of one's self, anonymously, without recognition or reward, going a
little out of one's way to contribute to the abstract notion of "helping others."

I remember standing in long lines with others on September 11, 2001. We didn't know what else to do, but we could to THIS and light a candle against the threatening darkness.

Most recently, I completed a four week, eight-session stint with the county Grand Jury. This is
the second time that I had ever been called upon in my 53 years, and was not previously selected.

A Grandy Jury determines if there is sufficient evidence to forward the case to a trial. They
select twenty-three people; it takes sixteen to make up a quorum, and twelve to indict.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_jury

I was pleased to discover that, before selection by lottery, those called can volunteer for
service. I, and fourteen others did so. As I got to experience the personalities of my peers, I
came to believe that this was indeed a representative sampling of the commmunity (for better and for worse), although in this particular group persons of colour were indeed under- represented.

Since in my vocation I routinely facilitate - and mediate - controversial team meetings, a lot of
the proceedings were standard operating procedure as far as I was concerned. It was fascinating
observing the common citizen trying to work things out with co-jurors whom they found frequently annoying, or philosophically WRONG. We handled DWI, narcotic sales, allegations of rape, of robbery, of violation of protection orders, and, certainly most uncomfortably, child pornography.

On this last charge, the application of peer pressure became necessary to Do The Right Thing. Several members declared that they would NOT look at the evidence, and would ABSTAIN from the deliberations. And the evidence WAS mostly vile. But we argued with them, that they had a DUTY. If they did not participate, we could not make a quorum, and someone who (might) need to face criminal charges could walk free (and, based on their taped deposition, would not get the help that they themselves obviously needed). So, SUCK IT UP! we told them. Do your damn duty. And they, and we, did so.

Though a clumsy process, I do believe that this is a valuable check and balance at the gates
between law enforcement and justice. So many peoplle groan upon receiving a jury summons and begin plotting to get out of it. In all our sociopolitical systems, the truth is, they only work
if you participate.

So I claim my merit badges as a voter, a political activist, a blood donor, and a juror. I look
forward to the opportunity to collect more.

What badges have YOU earned? Tell your tale.

(Illustrative thanx to Brother Spryglet!)

2006-07-13T23:44:00.000-07:00

Getting Closer to What I Want

How I love eBay! All the toys a digital dilletante could possibly want are available thereon! Despite having a close to complete lack of interest in obtaining a cell phone, I have had three digital cameras and four PDAs, all smaller and more powerful, though all were previous generations of the technology. Laptops, I've gone through seven since the first 486SX-33 (when state-of-the-art was P166).

But a Tablet PC; aren't they constantly passing them around on "Star Trek," digital books and logs and viewers? Do away with that keyboard and mouse?

So, I bid on and won a FUJITSU STYLISTIC 3400, a P3 400MHz, 192 MB RAM, 6 GB HDD. One USB port, one PCMCIA slot. It's got Win2K Pro SP4 and Office 2K, and a couple of utilities I've loaded on it. I have to say, it's getting closer to what I want.

At some point I'll need to upgrade the hard drive: 6 Gig is just NOT enough space, and I already suspect getting an OS on it will be a minor trick since the BIOS does NOT give an option to boot to a CDROM. I've just succeeded in getting a PCMCIA WiFi to work, and I'm looking for a small, inconspicuous USB hub so that I can use my digital camera, thumb-drive memory, and a keyboard together.

That last is the biggest disappointment, same as my HP Pocket PC: trying to write words with a stylus just does not make it. Slow and clumsy, especially with these aging and increasingly crampy hands. I am drafting this with a roll-up vinyl USB keyboard, though, and it works just fine.

Hey, if I could just recharge the batteries with a small "briefcase"solar panel, well wouldn't that be fun!

Closer and closer, aye!

AND OTHER WANTS:

I recently read an on-line article about someone who had hacked two iPods to allow pod-to-pod transfer of music without mediation by a computer, but the catch was, it could only be done in real time. A five-minute tune took five minues to transfer. I want to have a thumb drive, or something like it, that will allow me to select and transfer a variety of files - MP3s, docs, jpegs and the like, in the amount of time it would take to download them from your computer. Of course, this will make the Guardians of the Copyright absolutely nuts, but... well. 'Information wants to be free,' don't'cha know?

2005-10-16T22:47:00.000-07:00

It's the Green Man's Fault!

Here I am, despite misgivings, presenting myself in a virtual forum. It's the Green Man's fault, having recommended the blogosphere as an anodyne to sociopolitical despair. He, of course, has his own blog, which he posts to with a nearly religious regularly. Iself don't anticipate such productivity, and am not nearly as cute. But, the slow seed that he hath planted has convinced me that a publik rant is good for the soul. Besides, where else should I keep all of the flinders of writing that I pound out? Might as well put them here.