Real True Actual Headlines

2011-10-09T15:34:00.001-06:00

Immigrants fearing deportation make plans for kids

"I wouldn't 'plans' exactly, but we have to have something to do while we're waiting!"

Romney rivals may go after him for flip-flops

"He'd make a lousy president, but he has great taste in casual footwear!"

Syria warns countries not to recognize opposition

"Just pretend you don't know them!" advises social director.

American growth theorists top contenders for Nobel

"Off with their heads - that'll stump 'em!"

Sundown: No Florida schools in AP Top 25

Money-saving scheme to eliminate education to begin at dusk wins journalism admiration

Reuters

Merkel, Sarkozy promise new crisis package, offer no details

"We're not quite sure what kind of disaster we can cook up, but it'll be a doozy, we promise you that!"

Yemeni opposition doubts Saleh pledge to quit soon

"Look, I just started with the nicotine gum, okay? Gimme half a chance!"

California allows college aid to illegal immigrants

Universities to offer new "BC" degree: Bachelor of Coyote-ing

U.S.

Unemployed seek protection against job bias

"You come in, you interview, and first thing you know, the bastards want you to WORK!"

World

Quartet tries to restart Israeli-Palestinian talks

Baritone Steph Hartsel suggests "All We Are Saying" as inspirational number

Libya govt says takes landmarks in Gaddafi hometown

Street signs, pavement markings, survey monuments removed as keepsakes

Politics

Romney responds to Mormon flare-up; Perry passes

"I'm using the same salve I've always used in the past," says candidate, "and I've told the Governor repeatedly that I'm a happily married man, and I'm just not interested."

Health

New prostate cancer test advice overturns dogma

Even more amazing than the Virgin Mary appearing on a piece of toast, MRI's all over the world are turning up these words: "Hey, Pope, let priests get married, okay?"

Kids' ER concussion visits up 60 pct over decade

Padding of waiting room furniture and walls ineffective, OSHA officials say

Science

Scientists to develop deep ocean seismic network

Network to ponder questions such as "Why did God put us on this earth if only to suffer then die?" while waiting for quakes

Saturday's Draconid meteors may be no-see-ums

But, unfortunately, may yet be yes-crush-ems

Insight: Nobel winner's last big experiment: Himself

First to win dual awards in "Time Travel" and "Cloning", recipient is beside himself with pride

Monkey mind control -- a breakthrough for paralysis?

Congress submits to implants

Odd

Minn. woman accused of robbing home to buy porn

Ill-informed miscreant apparently unaware that this stuff is available free on the internet

Police: Man impersonating cop pulls over real cop

... who was impersonating drunk driver at the time

Salt Lake City underwear run sets world record

"These are, without a doubt, the worst pantyhose I've ever had," says 50-foot Mormon woman.

Medical pot user turned in by pizza delivery man

"Dude, he was so spaced-out, I had to put him to bed! I ate the pizza myself!"

Tech

Sprint down after testy meeting with analysts

Jogging can ease anxieties created by ganged-up Freudians

Rdio extends free trial period for music plan

Arrests and court dates still available for music-download sting

Disney CEO Iger renewed through March 2015

Animatronic pneumatic and hydraulic lines replaced at cost of $29M

Sports

NFL mourns passing of Raiders owner Al Davis

... with music, snacks, champagne, and smiles all around

Faxon wins rain-shortened Insperity Championship

Named 2011's Grand Insperitor

You Get What You Pay For

2011-09-29T12:08:00.002-06:00

You've heard it many times: "You get what you pay for."

I think that that is not quite right. What is intended is not that what you get when you buy something is worth exactly what you paid for it, because it is everyone's experience that we have spent a lot of money and ended up with disappointing crap. So you can certainly pay for something great and NOT get it ... old adages not withstanding.

What is really meant by this saying is more cynical, and along the lines of another adage: "There's no such thing as a free lunch," blended with "There's a sucker born every minute."

What "You get what you pay for" really means is "You don't get what you don't pay for."

In other words, although the vendor reserves the right to screw you by selling you junk for top dollar, you must nevertheless be prepared to pay top dollar to get the good stuff. Here's the logical diagram:

small money -> junk

BIG MONEY -> junk or good stuff

Caveat emptor.

Apocalypse Not

2011-05-21T11:46:00.002-06:00

If you're reading this, then the latest predicted end of the world, like all the others before it, has come and gone. Admit it, you're a little disappointed, aren't you?

What is it that's so attractive about end-of-world predictions, anyway? And what is it that's supposedly so horrible about the prospect of the end of the world?

We're all going to die.

I'm sorry to be the one to bring you this bad news, but statistical evidence is that the human mortality rate is 100%. So, why do we panic when we hear we're going to die in the company of everyone else?

The post-WWII "boomers" were raised with the specter of total nuclear war hanging over our heads at all times. I think much of the free-wheeling sixties, and most of the excesses and bad behavior of the boomers since then, has been a reaction to that fact of our up-bringing. One can face the total destruction of the world only so long before one develops a sort of devil-may-care attitude about finishing one's homework. It's only a step or two beyond that into drugs, beads, long hair, fringed leather vests, and sexual excess. So I'm told.

And, once it appeared that the balloon would not go up, and the hammer would not drop (yet another apocalyptic forecast gone wrong), my generation, now burdened with the habits and results of a decade or two of debauchery, understandably turned instead to the sweet succor of grossly overpaid Wall Street jobs, rampant and extravagant consumption, and the accumulation of planches.

Because, what it is about the end of the world that is somehow more chilling and horrifying than simply dieing is this: Everyone Goes With You.

Our biological imperative is to reproduce, and to see to it that our progeny are to be well cared for, to carry on our genes. Once that is accomplished, although there is still a certain reluctance to die, at least we can slip away knowing that the world will go on without us. However badly we may have screwed up, the world will go on without us. However grand and important we may think our life has been, the world will go on without us.

But, in the apocalypse, Everyone Goes With You. And, for those of you who subscribe to the idea of nuclear winter and who enjoy reading Cormac McCarthy, perhaps Every Living Thing Goes With You.

Wow. That's literally a buzz kill.

Each of us is reconciled to being a screw-up in his own right, but I think we all take solace to some degree from knowing that the world is resilient enough to, well ... go on without us. But if we have screwed it up so badly that we not only kill ourselves, we not only kill everyone else at the same time, but we also kill all the birdies, flowers, bunnies, whales, worms, nematodes, and plankton at the same time, well that's likely to appear on our permanent record.

And for believers, it's no comfort to know that we ourselves haven't brought on this destruction, but it is that God has judged us, found us wanting, and visited this terrible fate upon us in despair of us ever getting it figured out. It's still the end of everything we know and love.

Well, except not, actually. For believers, as usual, there's always a secret trap door for the select few. In exchange for their adherence, they will be saved from the apocalypse. But still, while they're joyous for themselves, it must bring at least a twinge that everyone and everything else has to walk the plank.

So it is that, about once a decade, we greet some new lame-brain prediction of the end of the world with bated breath and rapt attention. "Maybe this time, it's really the one!" "They seem so sure of themselves!" "The way everything else is going to hell in a handbasket, they're probably right this time!"

And, I'm afraid, to a certain degree, very privately, we think: "Cool. I wonder what it's going to be like?"

I remember watching films of atomic bomb tests when I was kid. They were as common on TV as ads for Pepsodent. I think we all have burned into our minds from childhood the images of that giant flare, that ball of fire, that mushrooming cloud with the streamers from instrumented rockets, the power of the blast sucking up battleships from the ocean, shock waves nearly demolishing whole towns, then the sucking back-draft finishing the job.

Admit it: We love it. We are drawn to it. We know that, finally, we have achieved at least one God-like power ... the power to destroy life as we know it! If you don't believe me, look back at the face of Dick Cheney when he was Secretary of Defense.

The thrill of the Apocalyptic Prediction is the thrill of a cosmic game of chicken: who's going to chicken out first this time? God or Man?

A Great Looking Car

2011-05-16T17:10:00.002-06:00

The best car I ever had was made entirely of paint. Well, actually, it's the only car I've ever had.

No, really. It's paint all the way down to the other side. No metal, no rubber for the tires, no engine, nothing ... just paint.

Looked great, that car, when I got it. Still looks great, actually. I have to be careful, though. Over the years, I have just loved parking it under a tree on a hot summer's day and washing it, then lovingly waxing it and buffing it up to a magnificent shine. Hey, it's fine fracking paint, people, excellent paint, but I've polished it so often that from time to time I rub my way right through and leave a hole. That's lame. So, I've gotten really good with the touch-up paint.

Driving it is not so whippy, though. It operates basically like Barney Rubble's car ... I put my feet down on the ground below the car and run. It's got some kind of terrific paint bearings, though, or something, because once I get it rolling, it will keep rolling for miles. Zero emissions.

The brakes, though, are hard on the soles.

Suffice it to say, I love this car. More than anything else in my life, actually. I've had it forever, it seems, and people are always asking me, like, "Wow, that's a beautiful car, man! How long have you had it?" And I tell them I have had it since it was almost new, and they always say, "Man, I wish I could have a car like that! I mean, I love my car and all, but it's nothing like the car you have!"

I smile and nod and say "Thanks!" Little do they know just how right they are. Their cars are nothing like mine. Mine is paint, all the way through.

It's the only car I've ever had, so what do I know? Maybe all cars are just paint all the way through. I don't think so, but sometimes I wonder. I love my car and all, but what would it be like to be in a car that had an engine and brakes and all that stuff I've read about?

If I had a car that actually had an engine, I don't think I would care if it ran like crap. Just imagine! Step on the gas, and it goes! Step on the brake and it stops!

But I know lots of people that have cars like that, and they all wish they had a car like mine. A beautiful, shiny, classic car. But, they don't know.

It's paint. All the way through.

Perfection

2011-05-13T16:16:00.001-06:00

Every one of us has his burden to bear

As many of you know, mine is coping with being perfect.

I was not one of the fortunate ones, born in a state of perfection, as were, for example, my sisters (so they have told me.) No; child and man, I have had to strive, struggle, and finally transform myself, as the magnificent butterfly transforms from a lowly chrysalis, in order to arrive at this dizzying promontory of life.

I would like to take this occasion to say that I could not have done this without the support of my family and friends. I would like to say that, but of course, that would be false humility, and therefore a shortcoming.

What I will say is that friends and family have gifted me with ample opportunities for learning and growing, by often and repeatedly pointing out my limitations and failures. Painful as those lessons may have been for all of us, from my new perspective I can see that, while their intentions were never pure, nevertheless, in their innocence and ignorance, they served me in my quest. And for this, I must love them.

Now, some of you may feel that what I have said here is embarrassingly vain, prideful and is in itself ample evidence against my very profession of perfection.

But this is only because you have not properly adjusted your expectations of the ideal state.

Let me help you:

First, you must learn the concept of prima facie evidence. Behold me! Do not shrink back in awe! Understand that you are seeing perfection, then we can move on.

Second, you must understand the power of definition. For example, if you perceive me as being somehow egoistical and self-centered, then by definition, you are simply wrong, as I am perfect, you see. This profoundly powerful tool will be very useful in your inevitable acceptance of the truth, as well as in your own quest for perfection.

Third, you must open your eyes and the windows of your soul to see beyond the shallow dictates of fashion and the common taste. To see that, although I may not resemble society's ideal of manliness, grace, nor intellect, it must certainly be that society is simply in error. This is easy to forgive, as society is unfortunately made up of the imperfect.

Given these tools, I highly recommend that you stand yourself before a full-length mirror and bask in the radiant goodness that is you.

Do not compare yourself to the arbitrary ideal that you have been brainwashed to lust for!

Do not, certainly, compare yourself to me! To begin, you must humbly set your sights much lower.

Using the measuring-rod which is yourself, look deeply into the glass and you will see that your journey to perfection may not be the impossible trek you probably believed.

You're welcome.

The Doe Friends

2011-04-30T16:10:00.003-06:00

The rattlers' father returned to his nest of vipers at day's end.

“Tomorrow we ssshall all go to sssee what I have found that will bring usss all the tender rabbitsss we can sssting and ssswallow.”

And for sure, the next morning, the viper family followed their father for a long journey, until at last, they slithered out of the tall grass into an open area beneath a shade tree. There, at the foot of the tree, lay the body of a dead deer, reduced now to nothing more than its skin and bones.

“The deer and the rabbitsss are friendsss,” the father of vipers said. “Ssso here isss my idea: we ssshall fill the ssskin of the deer and asssk the sssimple-minded rabbitsss out to play. When they have left the sssafety of their warrensss far behind, we ssshall fall on them and eat our fill!”

And so the snake family labored all that day to remove the bones from the dead deer, and then they themselves moved into the hollow carcass:

The strong young brothers occupied the legs and practiced together to make the dead deer seem to walk;

The supple young sisters occupied the head and neck and they learned to work together to make doe eyes and to wiggle the long ears;

The murderous father, whose evil idea it was to take on the appearance of the harmless deer, occupied the central position of the heart to give directions, and;

The mother of the family of deadly snakes, who had the most enticing and sweetest of voices, filled the dead deer's mouth.

As evening approached, the snakes knew that the rabbits would emerge from their warrens to eat and play, so they maneuvered the carcass of the deer on strangely wobbly legs to the fields nearby.

When the first rabbit mother, also called a doe, poked her nose out of the warren to sniff and look for danger before sending out her family toward the dangerous but sweet tall grasses for their dinner, she was surprised to see her friend the doe deer, standing there.

“Hello, my friend deer! We haven't seen each other for many days! I thought perhaps harm had come to you!” said the rabbit doe, still showing only her face out from the warren's door.

“I have been away,” the snake mother said, impersonating well the voice of the departed doe. “Come outssside and eat, my friend, and bring your family!” said the false friend, her head bouncing on her contorting neck, and her body wriggling on top of her oddly wobbling legs. “It isss a fine evening, and we can cavort together in the long grassesss yonder!”

“I know those slitted eyes, and I know that forked tongue,” said the rabbit doe. “And I think that tonight, Mother Snake, the rabbit family will be better off going to bed without any supper at all!”

Moral:

A lying tongue will reveal an evil heart.

"The" World, ... and more

2011-04-13T12:43:00.003-06:00

For years I lived in Colorado Springs, CO, and didn't realize that I didn't know the name of Colorado College. As part of a general awakening for me to my surroundings about twenty years ago, I discovered that it was actually The Colorado College. It may have been the college all along, and I had just overlooked it, or perhaps the Board of Governors (or whatever) recognized that The Ohio State University was getting a lot of mileage out of putting the "the" in front of their name, with instructions for adherents to really emphasize it when spoken: "THE Ohio State University."

I kind of get it. There are other colleges in Colorado, including ones with Colorado in their names, so just saying "Colorado College" might be ambiguous. But that's not generally done in this country. Folks seem to tolerate a certain amount of ambiguity in lieu of hauling around extra articles. I mean, there are plenty of natural springs in Colorado, but does that justify calling it The Colorado Springs? No! (And don't go getting ideas!) To me, that just comes off sounding hoity-toity and snobby.

Oh, wait. Now I understand!

But that doesn't explain The Ohio State University*, which is anything but hoity-toity. And I find it hard to believe that there are so many Ohio State Universities as to cause confusion. Although, I've been wrong before. Recently. Maybe they just aspire to be hoity-toity? If so, a better place to start might be to keep their football players out of jail.

Or The Hague; really, are there all that many Hagues out there that we have to call it The Hague? At least once The Ukraine became a nation of its own, separate from the U.S.S.R., they (or maybe just we) dropped the "The." That one took some getting used to. I still want to say The Ukraine, against my better judgement.

On the other hand, in the movie "Titanic," the characters all assiduously referred to the ship as Titanic, not The Titanic like earthlings do. They were clearly coached to do this, and it seemed as unnatural for them to say it as it did for me to hear it ... they seemed to strain at it a little each time. That was distracting through the whole movie.

----------------

I think I've ranted about "and more" in store names before. That is an affectation that shop-keepers of the olde shoppe variety hope will entice buyers into their potpourri shop "Scents ... and more!"when what we're out shopping for is an impact wrench. The worst offender of all is maybe the store in Colorado Springs (and possibly elsewhere, it's probably a chain): Everything ... and more! Wow! Mind bending!

I actually have seen a car ad recently that stated that their new car delivered "Everything you could want in a performance sedan ... and more!" as if that were a good thing. If we're going off beyond everything I could want, aren't we into a kind of adversarial position here? How about just stop at what I actually want, okay? That'll be fine.

--------------------

We shopped for mattresses recently from Mattress World. Imagine what a nightmare of a solar system this would be: Mattress World, Tire World, Electronics World, Burger World, Women's World (that one might be okay), Cartridge World, Hair World ... and more!

--------------------

* By the way, if The Ohio State University is really the name, shouldn't it be TOSU? Likewise TCC for The Colorado College? Hmmm?

Circus Arts

2011-03-30T17:53:00.002-06:00

The other day, The Oregonian newspaper had a flattering article about new "Circus Arts" classes being made available here in the Portland area. These are modeled after a very successful program in San Francisco that offers a range of child and adult conditioning and therapy, based on juggling, trampoline, wire walking, and even trapeze. The programs have had particular success with the handicapped and special-needs children.

Nevertheless, my initial reaction to the article was one of disbelief. I long ago lost my interest in circuses and now get a sense of foreboding when I see clowns - a feeling that is apparently shared by many other people. Circuses seem kind of creepy to me - tawdry, exploitative, dirty, tasteless and phony. In other words, perfect entertainment! (Cirque du'Soliel is to the typical circus as vodka is to voda ... not at all the same thing!)

So, my inner Woody Allen spoke up and asked me "What do you think are some of the courses offered in this "Circus Arts" program?" And here they are:

Automotive Clown Stuffing

The Greying Acrobat: The Effects of Rheumatoid Arthritis on the Mature Trapeze "Catcher"

The Greying Acrobat: "Easier to Get Into Than Out Of" - Contortions to Avoid for Those Over 60

The Greying Acrobat: Plantars Warts and Your Tight-Rope Career

The Greying Acrobat: Moving From Tight Rope to Slack Rope and the Role of Viagra

The Greying Acrobat: The Limits of Lycra

Basic Ballistics for The Human Cannonball: Surfing The Net and Why Not To

The Risks of Bareback Riding (Presented by Planned Parenthood)

Lion Taming vs. Dog-and-Pony Shows - Life and Health Insurance Considerations

Juggling for the Easily Distracted - It Can Be Done!

"It's A Big Tent!" - Practical Methods To Increase The Diversity of Your Troupe

Cirque du'Soliel: The French Name Effect as a Path to Higher Ticket Prices and Profits

Basic Circus Equipment Management: Whips, Wooden Chairs, Top Hats, Starters' Pistols, Net Mending the Greek Fisherman's Way, Giant Shoe Repair, Repairing Smoke Damage to the Eternally Burning Doll House

Re-Scoring Music for the Four-Piece Orchestra

Limitation of Liability: OSHA and the Extremely-Tall Unicycle

Basic Rousting-About

The Agents of Entropy

2011-03-06T15:09:00.002-07:00

A friend of mine, Charlie Campbell, also an architect, once defined architecture as "the science of lining things up." I would modify that to be "the art and science of lining things up," but that's nit-picky; otherwise, I think that's a great definition for my life's work.

I've liked lining things up since I was a little kid. By color, by size, by coolness, by age, whatever criterion that was suitable (or merely interesting) would do to justify my spending hours sorting and re-sorting piles of blocks, pebbles, leaves, toys, clothes, whatever. Even today, at sixty-three, my closet is sorted by color (blue t-shirts with blue dress shirts with blue pants, etc.) and our DVDs are sorted alphabetically. Why? It's not really a compulsion (I'm quite happy living in a level of disorder that drives my wife crazy), but the act of sorting gives me pleasure.

For that reason, in part, I've always known I would be an architect. I flirted with being an engineer, but I think I was pulled to architecture by the subtleties of curves, harmonic distributions, and sorting criteria such as color and aesthetic impact that make architecture maybe more of an art than is engineering.

I absolutely love the appearance on a site plan of artfully rhythmed contour lines, and I am always pleased to see how appealing the results are to those who live and work in my projects. But it isn't really the results that charm me, it is the process of ordering itself; there is something sensuous to me about taking a dis-ordered group of objects and exposing its inner order.

Luckily.

In my current role as "the Pum," or grandfather of my daughter's sons Ben and Theo, I try to hold the line against entropy. The boys, like most children of their ages (5½ and 2½, respectively), are the Agents of Entropy. And energetic and skilled agents they are.

I love to put my Dad's old stone building blocks into their bedraggled old wooden box; the boys delight in dumping them out. I enjoy stacking their alphabet blocks into ever-taller and more elaborate earthquake-proof towers; the boys love to become "Ben-zilla" or "Theo-zilla" and ravage my creations as part of their ferocious attacks on downtown Tokyo. I love putting their large collection of Hot Wheels in a parking lot sorted by color, size, and horsepower; Theo especially loves restoring their natural disorder rather explosively.

All to the good. I'm never upset (well, rarely upset ... sometimes the explosion of entropy is a little over the top), as each episode gives me another chance to put the toys in order again, using some new criterion maybe more zilla-resistant. (Not likely!) The resulting cycle of aesthetic order and exuberant disorder provides us with hours of mutual play time.

I'm wading through a book on my Kindle right now called "The Black Swan" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. It's not about fetching young ballerinas in lesbian trysts, as you might imagine. The book's subtitle is "The Impact of the Highly Improbable," and refers to our societal blindness to the frequency and power of what he calls "black swans," sudden, unexpected, and profoundly disruptive events such as financial disasters, earthquakes, breakthrough technologies, and so-on.

It's a topic I've read about before, and relates to the issue of order and disorder and their relationship to chance, and our understanding of such things through the application of probability, which is, to put it kindly, limited and/or incorrect.

In any case, I return as I read to the idea that natural processes (in our corner of this universe, anyway), trend always toward entropy, or disorder. So pervasive is this tendency that entropy is called "the arrow of time", meaning that with the passage of time, things must, by the laws of physics, get more entropic, which is to say, messier. Conversely, noticing the order of events which results in greater disorder is an indicator of the direction of elapsing time, should that be in doubt.

Now, clearly, the acts of living things, including people, often lead to a seeming decrease in entropy rather than an increase. I.e., one of the things that distinguishes life from inanimate objects is their creation of order. This is particularly true of humans, and among humans, of architects and their ilk.

This has been studied at length, and it has been proven conclusively that neither people nor amoebas have the power to overcome the natural laws; our seeming creation of order in what we do is always local to us, and at the expense of increasing the overall level of disorder which surrounds us, thus resulting in a net increase in entropy in the universe, in exchange for a net decrease close to ourselves.

Nevertheless, there is something profoundly pleasing about bringing about order in the midst of chaos. Even knowing that overall my use of energy, resources, time and life force produces a net amount of disorder, the creation of a little island of order, pattern, rhythm, peace, and comprehensibility is worth the price to me. It seems such a human thing to do. In its humble way, it seems almost God-like to be able to wrest a coherent thing from out of the surrounding randomness.

Today, it occurred to me for the first time that our computers, although mighty agents of order, indeed, perform this task in an essentially different way from that in which mankind creates order.

Whether stacking blocks into a play skyscraper or alphabetizing a drawer of index cards, the human way is to physically sort them, i.e. to gather them together then replace them according to some sorting criteria ... alphabet, size, color, etc. as I've mentioned.

But the computer, god bless its overheated little silicon heart, doesn't (necessarily) do it this way.

A computer program simply inventories the set of objects to be ordered in place, then sorts the "mental" model of the set along with an index of where the sorted set of objects actually resides. In other words, it's as if you took a picture of the jumble of scattered blocks on the floor after a "Ben-zilla" attack, labeled each block in the photo with some unique tag which recorded its location and sorting characteristic (i.e., what letter of the alphabet is on it), sorted the tags accordingly, and printed out a database with the tags in order, and each one linked to one block, to be located as tagged in the photo.

The computer doesn't bother to actually move the blocks themselves into the desired order. It just tells you which blocks now lying there on the floor in a pile would be where if it did sort them. A machine (or a librarian, or a store clerk, or a data miner) can thus quickly retrieve any desired block by using this sorted list, just as if the blocks (books, shirts, facts) themselves had been physically moved around. This is especially helpful when different users or users at different times might want to find the largest shirt, or maybe the greenest one, or perhaps the cheapest one. The number of criteria by which the same set can be ordered is theoretically limitless, while the number of ways a set may be physically ordered (the number of sorting criteria available at once) is generally limited to the number of dimensions available. typically three.

So the question is, if the computer aids the counter-entropic efforts of its human operator by sorting chaotic sets for him, but if the set is not in fact re-ordered but merely indexed, is entropy decreased (even locally) in the same manner and or to the same degree as it would have been by a physical sort? Is the resulting net entropy increase in the universe at large greater or less than if the set had been physically ordered by hand?

These are the things I worry about while I wash and stack the dishes.

Purging the Circle

2011-02-27T16:39:00.005-07:00

The attack was so sudden, so overwhelming, so unexpected, that our defense forces had no chance.

The enemy was so brutal, so ruthless, so efficient, so thorough, that much of Earth was swept clean of human life.

Their technologies were so advanced, their motives so obscure, their objectives so ... well, so alien ... that all we could do was watch in awe and horror as their evil space-spawned armada scoured away our homes, our families, our lives.

Yet not all the vanquished were among the dead. With cold precision, our new insectoid masters spared one in a hundred of us, for they needed slaves, cowering, obedient slaves, to finish their work of dismantling the history and memory of mankind.

So, despite the wrenching vision of fire-belching warships, despite the anger and grief I felt as I watched my family, my home, my city, my nation, my planet succumb, despite the deafening noise of near-total destruction, and because I did not awaken, I was taken prisoner and made to do their nefarious bidding.

Be clear: we slaves were never hostages to our captors. There was no one and nothing they needed or desired as a ransom that they hadn't already seized by right of conquest. No, we were grunt labor only, cheaper to use than machines, because they neither fed nor housed us. Easier to use than machines, because we needed no programming, we already knew the land and obeyed their gestured orders out of abject fear. And we were easier to dispose of than machines when they were finished with us - they simply left us where we fell.

Some were made to scrawl numerals and alphabets on scraps of paper, as they leered over us while making a mucous rattle we came to know as their laughter, their mandibles clacking menacingly as they devoured the letters and words we were forced to create.

Some of us were limited to drawing only zeroes and the letter "O," which our new masters considered pornographic, as they watched us and drooled their delight and snapped their electric whips if we dared slow with fatigue. Outside of our calligraphic slave-cribs, these round symbols were forbidden and any human found marking with a circle was summarily tortured and killed. Many did so, simply to end the pain.

"Q"'s and other letters with tails, such as "p" and "y" were considered merely naughty, and selected human victims would be forced to scribble them like graffiti on what remained of our civilization ... buildings, statues, bridges, churches ... before they and the forlorn structures they had tagged were blasted with heat rays for the aliens' perverted amusement.

I was assigned to a work gang with other able-bodied men. We were tasked with erasing the image of the circle in all its manifestations from the remaining instrumentality of the Earth. We slagged down the wheels of automobiles and trains, we replaced endless numbers of manholes with new ones cobbled together out of scrap metal in the shape of triangles.

Coins, soda cans, cathedral windows, door knobs, eyeglasses, traffic signals! Of the pervasiveness of circles in our world, I was wholly unaware before I and my ragtag cohort of a demolition crew were tasked with their removal.

The coins, I heard, were gathered and flown in a gigantic warship to some exotic locale, where they were reputedly dumped into an active volcano. The entire town of Akron, Ohio was destroyed in an instant by a nuclear explosion.

We were given no food, no water, no rest, no relief. We ate and drank what we happened to find in the ruins as we worked, and a few of my fellows, made mad by the stress, turned to eating pages from books and magazines in emulation of the aliens, who could be seen at all hours joyfully eating our written heritage.

It turned cold and one by one, my circle-wrecking crew dropped from hunger and exhaustion, and died, their skeletal bodies slowly covered by drifting snow. My time would come soon enough, I knew. If I could have turned traitor and pledged my allegiance to the a conquering nation or adopted the victors' religion, or embraced their language and customs, my moral fiber was such that I would have done so in an instant. But one cannot will oneself to become a ten-foot-tall armored grasshopper.

So, as usual, morning came and I awoke refreshed, comfortable and warm in my bed, whatever deep psychological pain I had borne, resolved by means of this dream - a dream neither more nor less than the usual evening's entertainment.

The Zombie Health Care Bill

2011-01-29T12:28:00.003-07:00

AARP (American Association of Rotting People), the leading zombie lobbying group, has issued their annual report on the federal government's slow, staggering progress towards universal health care for the undead.

"I'm afraid this bill is dead in the Senate again this year," said AARP spokesman Bubba Hotep, " ... which is great! We can only hope it dies in the House as well!"

The bill, dubbed "Leave No Corpse Buried," would provide for low-cost or free disinterment, eyeball re-socketing, head re-attachment, and extremely heavy Brogans for every undead American.

The new law would also close a loophole in current law under which foreigners in our country illegally who die here are automatically considered Americans and eligible for full zombie benefits.

Although most conservatives would like to see this "Dead to Rights" provision enacted to exclude illegal alien zombies from the federal dole, they will continue to staunchly oppose the LNCB legislation on the basis of cost.

"It's scary out there in the economy, folks, and zombie-care is one place where we could make significant cuts. The zombies won't mind a few cuts!" laughed Tennessee Senator Aberdean Zingler, glancing over his shoulder.

In other news, zombie fitness expert, the newly undead Jack LaLanne, said Friday "Slowly shuffling along in the dark with your arms out in front of you is really not a sufficient workout for the average zombie. C'mon, moldering Americans! Cut down on the portion sizes of brains, shuffle along a little faster, carry some hand weights while you walk, like a pair of headstones for example, and please, please quit moaning and groaning about getting a little exercise!"

The "Leave No Corpse Buried" bill would also provide for Death Panels and a repeal of the Death Tax. The grassroots De-Party Movement has frequently pointed out that there are simply not enough living taxpayers to fund benefits for every dead person in America. "We had to fight pea-shooters and dodge jalapenos to get to brains when we were newly dead. Zombies today want it all handed to them on a slab."

Three Wishes

2011-01-14T18:08:00.002-07:00

Three Wishes

“Three wishes?”

I was looking at a little figure from the “Arabian Nights,” maybe three inches tall, perched on the edge of my kitchen table.

I had come home from work really depressed; Kaitlin, the cute account agent in the next cubicle was chatting up Morton, the good-looking, but married jerk across the aisle, and she was totally ignoring me.

I rummaged through my kitchen cabinets looking for a drink to drown my sorrows, and came a cross a bottle of gin. I didn’t remember ever having bought a bottle of gin, but it was the hard stuff that I was in the mood for right now.

In fairness, the bottle wasn’t labeled “gin,” it was labeled “Dgin.” But in my mood, I was eager to overlook inconvenient details. When I opened the bottle, there was a loud “pop,” and the Djinn appeared on my table, silky turban, turned-up-at-the-toes brocade boots, and bloused-out trousers with a tiny scimitar hanging at his ample waist.

“Well, you know the drill,” he had said. “I’ll grant you three wishes, then I need to be on my way.”

“Three wishes?” I asked, still a little behind developments.

“Yeah, you know. Release the genie from the bottle, you get three wishes.”

I was still thinking about what had happened (or more to the point, what was not happening) at work with the beautiful young Miss Kaitlin. “Uh, what I really wanted was just a drink.”

I realized my error immediately. I had just frittered away one of my wishes! The shock of my realization must have been obvious.

“No, no. That wasn’t a wish!” the djinn explained. “I know you were just thinking out loud. We’re professionals … we don’t cheat people out of their wishes. I don’t know where that got started. Tell you what, I’ll throw in a free drink, while we chat about the rules.”

My tumbler slowly filled up with a beautiful golden liquid. “It’s not gin,” the little man said. “It’s a nice California Chardonnay. You’ll thank me in the morning.”

“I’m confused,” I said. “Who are you? What do you mean ‘the rules?’”

“Well, I’m a genie, you know. You let me out of the bottle, so I grant you three wishes. But there are some conditions to the deal. Have a drink, and let me explain. If I start to put conditions on your wishes after you make them, you’ll think I’m just weaseling. That’s probably why genies got such a bad reputation. So now, I just explain the rules up front.”

“First, I wasn’t imprisoned in the bottle. That’s where I live. When we’re done here, I won’t fly away or anything; I’ll just go back into my bottle, and you’ll throw it into the river, or into the trash or something, and one way or another, I’ll be found by the next person, and so on. Okay?”

“Uh, sure, I guess,” I said, sipping at the excellent wine.

“Okay, rule number two. No wishing for more wishes. You can’t believe what ingrates people are. Give ‘em three wishes, the first thing they want is a thousand more. No, no, no. Three wishes, that’s it.”

“Number three, no big, generalized altruistic crap, all right? None of this ‘world peace’ or ‘cure for cancer’ or any of that. What ever you wish for has to be for your personal benefit. It can affect other people, but its main action has to be for you. You can wish for your life to be peaceful, or to cure your cancer … see the difference? And it has to be in the realm of possibility, or everyone else is going to wonder what’s up, you see? For example, say you’re a big football fan. You could wish for the Broncos to win the Super Bowl this year. You don’t really care about the players or the owner, you just want the fun of watching your team win. That’s something that could happen without my intervention, so I could do that. But if you wished for the Cubs to win the World Series, no, that would be impossible.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” I said, as I drank from the constantly-refilling glass.

“Nothing magical or against the laws of physics, either. You can’t have x-ray vision, the power of flight, be invisible, or anything like that. It has to be something a regular person could have or do. Something you’ve always wanted, but could never seem to get.”

I was just about to wish for Kaitlin to fall in love with me when he went on.

“I won’t fool around with other people, either. I won’t kill anyone, make someone love you, cripple an enemy, or anything like that. These wishes are for you, not for anyone else.”

I was beginning to wonder if there was going to be anything left that I might actually want to wish for.

“You want someone dead, I could give you the skill and courage to kill them, but I’d try pretty hard to talk you out of it, see? Djinn’s aren’t omniscient, either. We can’t see through locked doors, into the future, or into other people’s hearts. I can’t tell you what to invest in on Wall Street. I can’t tell you what your boss is going to do tomorrow. I can’t tell you who’s down at the office right now, rifling your desk drawers.”

I looked startled, apparently. “Someone’s rifling through my drawers?”

“An example … that was an example,” the genie said, glaring at me, pacing up and down my place mat. I noticed for the first time he had poured himself a tiny drink, also, and was drinking from it from time to time. “Like I just said, I can’t do that stuff. Jeez, pay attention.” He took a big swallow. So did I.

“And I’m not going to give you anything that I, in my wisdom, believe wouldn’t be in your best interest. And I won’t let you waste your wishes on something that violates the rules. If you wish for something I can do, but that you shouldn’t have, I’ll try to talk you out of it. If you absolutely insist, I’ll do the best I can without harming you.”

I nodded my head, now a little swimmy. He put down his tiny glass of wine.

“Okay,” the little guy concluded, standing there, looking up at me, arms akimbo. “You ready?”

“Yeah, I think so. Thanks, by the way.” I said.

“Hey, no problemo! For one reason or another, you deserve it, or I wouldn’t have come to you. Let ‘er rip.”

“Okay. I’d like to be slender.” I’ve been fighting a weight problem all my life. I knew that was at least one of the reasons Kaitlin wasn’t attracted to me.

“Good one!” said the djinn. “I can see you’ve given this a little thought. You didn’t ask to be ‘skinny.’ You’d be surprised how may people want to lose weight, and ask to be ‘skinny.’ That’s probably our second or third most popular request. No one really looks good ‘skinny.” So, when you say ‘slender,’ that’s good … what weight are you thinking about? You’re what now, 275, 280?”

“285. I’d like to be maybe 180 pounds.”

“I don’t know. For a guy your size, that’s really only ‘ideal’. ‘Slender’ would be 165 or 170. How about we compromise at 175?”

“Yeah, that’d be great!” I said, brightening.

“Here’s the deal. I could do this straightaway, but it would be bad. In the first place, unless you change your lifestyle, you’d probably gain it all right back again. In the second place, if you lost one hundred ten pounds over night, you’d probably die, not to mention you’d attract a lot of unwanted attention.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“Well, think about it. Your skin would be all loose and flappy … it’d probably slide right off you! At best, you’d look like an undernourished Shar-Pei puppy. Your hair would all fall out. Your teeth would get loose. None of your clothes would fit. And you’d still have the appetites and exercise habits that got you to 285 in the first place. I can’t grant you a wish that would keep you slender … that’d be like a whole series of wishes, and I already said I wouldn’t do that. I think what you really should ask for is to become slender.”

“What’s the difference?” I asked.

“Well, in that case, I could change you in such a way that you would want to lose the weight, and would enjoy doing the things necessary to burn off the fat you now have. I would change your preferences and lifestyle such that you would not only lose the weight slowly enough to be healthy, but also keep it off once you got to the weight you want to maintain.” explained the djinni.

“Well, I don’t need to waste a magical wish on that! I could do that myself!” I complained.

“No offense, pal, but look at yourself. If you could do this on your own, would you look like this?” asked the genie, poking me in the belly with his little scimitar.

“Ow!” I said. He had a point. “Well, okay. But, how long is it going to take to get to be slender?”

“Were you ever at your ideal weight?”

“When I got out of basic training in the Army.”

“When was that?” asked the genie.

I thought for a minute. “1982,” I said.

“Okay, then. It took you twenty years to gain the weight, so it should take about twenty years to lose it sensibly,” said the genie.

“No way. I don’t want to be …” math was coming a little slower under the growing influence of the wine, “sixty years old before I get to my ideal weight!”

“Okay, point taken. How about, we give you a real ‘go-getter’ attitude that will make you just love to exercise and eat right? I think you can get to your ideal weight in two years. How’s that sound?”

“Better. It’s a deal.” I said. I put down the glass of wine. It didn’t really appeal to me all that much.

“Second wish?” asked the genie.

“I’d like to be rich,” I quickly answered. While I was talking to the genie, I decided it would be a good time to get in some sit-ups.

“Same deal,” responded the genie, looking at me on the floor, from over the edge of the table. He hopped down and sat on my feet, as if to hold them down while I did my sit-ups. He was surprisingly heavy. “Imagine if you got rich right away. With no particular source for the money, that’s going to raise a lot of eyebrows, don’t you think? Your boss will wonder if you’re stealing from the company, the IRS will express a sudden interest, and you’ll be swamped with new friends and old relatives you never knew you had. Trust me, this is the most common wish we get; I can give it to you, but you won’t like it when you have it.”

“Well, I’d like to have more money,” I said, panting from the sit-ups. “If you can’t grant me on-going wishes, lots of money is the best way I can think of …” gasp, “…to fulfill my own wishes in the future,” I explained.

“Sure, I see the reason you want it, but I just don’t think you should get it all at once. I don’t think you really want to be rich, I think you want to become rich. I can give you the attitudes, talent, and work habits that you need to accumulate a great deal of wealth, but gradually and legitimately, so no one will suspect you of ill-gotten gains.”

“…ninety-nine, one hundred,” I said. I felt compelled to jump up and get started on some jumping jacks before my heart rate declined too far. “Okay, fine. So how long will it be before I’m rich?”

The genie answered cryptically, “Well, that would depend on you. Lots of folks are satisfied with much less that what you already have. Others are never satisfied. It would depend on your definition of ‘rich,’ I guess.”

“I can see that,” I puffed between jacks. “I don’t want money to be my life, but on the other hand, I don’t want to settle too easily, either. I’d like to have enough to be envied, I guess.”

“Well, I can easily make you ambitious and hard-working enough to achieve an enviable life style and nest egg, and alter you such that you really enjoy it in the process. Would that be acceptable?”

“Yeah, that sounds great!” I said. “Could we get finished with this pretty soon? I’d like to get back down to the office.”

“You have one more wish,” the genie noted.

“Come on along,” I asked the genie. I was sweating like a pig. I headed into the bathroom to take a shower, and the genie followed along behind me. “I’d like to be really smart, too.”

“No offense, buddy, but if you were really smart, you’d just realize that you’re also ignorant,” said the genie.

“Oh, thank you!” I said, feeling hurt, but impatient to get back to the Wilson account, as I turned on the shower and the genie climbed up onto the soap dish.

“I don’t think you really want to be smart. What you really want is to become educated,” explained the genie. “Slow and steady, that’s the way! I can you give a thirst for knowledge, and the will to fulfill it. With that, the internet, and a good Junior College, you can have a degree in three years, and round out your cultural awareness to boot!”

“Great, let’s do it!” I said as I toweled off.

The genie smiled. “Done and done.”

The genie suddenly grew in size, but as he grew, he became somehow transparent. Then, like a wisp of smoke, he drifted back to the kitchen, grabbed the bottle cap, and spun down into the bottle of “Dgin,” screwing the cap back into place behind himself.

I shrugged. Too much wine.

I got dressed, and on my way back to the office, I stopped by Sawyer Junior College and registered for Fall semester classes. While I was there, I threw the bottle in the dumpster.

Nothing ever came of my hallucination about the genie.

I eventually got promoted to be Kaitlin’s boss, but she no longer really interested me. I had fallen in love with Karen, a wonderful woman I met playing mixed doubles at Sawyer. We loved our jobs, and we both worked hard after graduation, and made a comfortable life for ourselves. But we never slighted the kids for our careers. We spent a lot of time taking them to see the natural wonders and historic sites, hiking, skiing, laughing.

Six Signs of a Bad Restaurant

2011-01-10T16:13:00.003-07:00

Always helpful, Comcast gives the following as six signs of a bad restaurant:

Managers/owners don't express passion for the business.
Menu choices are outdated/unchanging.
The number of regular menu items, as well as glassware/silverware, is shrinking.
Managers are cutting corners to stretch food ingredients.
The restaurant begins to close earlier.
Regular customers come in less frequently.

I've given this a bit of thought, and offer the following, possibly more telling, six qualities of bad restaurants:

They change their specialty from "vegan" to "insectivore"
Managers discover they can actually stretch food ingredients!
Alternative fuels greenies reject their used frying oil
The hostess wears a hair net and latex gloves
Inspections for this restaurant appear as a line item in the State Health Dept. budget
There's always a line of customers ... to leave!

Turtles All The Way

2011-01-01T18:48:00.002-07:00

Turtles All The Way,

In and Out With Bucky Fuller,

Why Changing Light Bulbs Makes My Pants Fall Off,

Why We've Been Eating The Wrong Fish For New Years' Maybe,

and

Regrets

I guess it's an old East-Indian folk tale that the world rests on the back of an elephant, who is in turn standing on the back of an enormous turtle. Asked what that turtle stood upon, an ancient savant said "Oh, it's turtles all the way down!"

I was raised with an image of the Earth being held up by Atlas. I assumed, when I heard this story, that Atlas was actually standing on the elephant, but the remainder seems fairly reasonable.

Although it kinda overlooks gravity, which under this scenario might have a negative effect on those living in the southern hemisphere.

I have long been a fan of Buckminster Fuller, and attended a lecture by him while I was a student at the University of Colorado in the early seventies. Bucky always started his lectures with some definitions of terms. For example, "in" and "out", which he used in lieu of "down" and "up" respectively. Looking at gravity on Earth from an objective view, "in" and "out" make perfect sense, because "up" and "down" are relative, and therefore refer to different directions at every point on the Earth's surface, whereas "in" and "out" are the same everywhere on the planet ... either toward the center of the Earth (in, or down), or away from it (out, or up).

The Atlas image and the "turtles all the way down" don't really work out with this concept, as they require a sense of down being the bottom of the page, which really only works for those in the extreme northern latitudes. Odd, then, that the story of Atlas apparently originated in Greece, which has roughly the same latitude as San Francisco, and the turtles story comes from India, which is at about the same latitude as Panama, both of which would be in severe distress if South were Down.

Nevertheless, it is the image of Atlas holding up the world which often comes to mind when I'm changing light bulbs. This is because, as you can clearly see, if gravity holds down Atlas and all the elephants and turtles and so-on, everything on the bottom of the world, i.e., from the equator southward, would fall right off!

And so it is with my pants. Although I think the world of myself, what I'm getting at here is that my torso resembles nothing quite so much as a world-sphere. The only was I can keep my pants on this sphere is to hitch them up until they ride at least a bit above the equator, then cinch them tightly and hope for the best.

Problems arise when I have to suck in my gut for one reason or another. I lose my pants when trying to squeeze between cars in a parking lot for example. Well, I don't actually lose them, they're right there, around my knees; what is lost is whatever vestige of dignity a man with a spherical torso can have. At least, in this situation, I can simply haul them back up again, shielded as I am by cars on either side.

More problematic is standing on the top of a step-ladder and doing work over my head, such as changing the light bulb in a ceiling-mounted fixture. As the torso stretches out, my world-sphere turns into more of a vertical world-sausage, and again, the pants fall off.

In this situation, however, salvaging dignity is generally beyond hope. I am, after all, poised on the top of a ladder with something in my hands, which means a) I can't immediately reach down and pull up my pants, and b) I am in no way shielded from view. This is particularly discomfiting when the work is being performed outside. For instance, on our second-floor balcony. On a busy street. Across the street from the police station.

So my attitude is one of sorrow for the hapless onlooker, devotion to the task at hand, and keeping a calm demeanor until I can climb down, my maintenance task successfully completed, pull up my pants, and go about my business.

This bit of geometry and TMI physics may help you understand why the older, more spherical among us either c) wear our pants way up on our chests as often depicted in cartoons (i.e. in the stratosphere above the hypothetical north pole), or d) wear suspenders.

It does not, however explain why guys wear their belts completely below their gut. This is done so that they can continue to buy the same size pants as they wore in high school, and is a symptom of denial.

Wrong Fish

My mother, God bless her, was a font of wisdom and foul language. She also used the word "fricky-dill" in such a way as to make you toes curl, even though I guess it is not strictly a bad word.

Anyway, she was full of old-wives tales about what to eat and do on New Year's Day so as to ensure a successful New Year. Among these was to avoid chicken, an animal which scratches backward, and favor fish, one which swims forward, you see, to ensure that the year would propel you forward toward your goals, not backward into the same old woes as last year.

We have often had salmon for New Year's Day dinner in fulfillment of this maternal prescription, not that we're superstitious. Not at all. But it occurs to me suddenly, that salmon might not really be the best fish for this occasion, as it swims upstream. So maybe cod. Whatta ya think?

Regrets

I have long felt that I have had but one regret in my life, and that was a trivial one. I've generally had a very good life.

But as I've gotten older, I have come to realize that many of the memories I roll about and toy with like a sore tooth are not just memories, but mini-regrets. These memories come with a breath of melancholy and ambiguity. Nothing that I would really like to change, but I feel a certain amount of chagrin about opportunities that I missed because I was too dopey to see them, or too cowardly to try them, or too lazy to follow them through.

Luckily, too, as I've gotten older, I have shed all of these unsavory personal traits like a snake sheds its skin. Maybe a poor metaphor, but you get the idea: I'm a much improved person now. Really.

Deep Thoughts (Courtesy Anu Garg, A Word A Day)

2010-08-01T22:40:00.001-06:00

Welcome, O life, I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race. Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead.
-Stephen Dedalus, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (James Joyce, 1919)

Live Long and Prosper

2010-07-29T15:15:00.000-06:00

Our ISP, ComCast.net, just published the following list of factors which can help you determine if you're going to live a long time or should just postpone doing the laundry a little longer. In trying to determine my own fate, I have set an average "better if used by" date of October, 1029, by which time I will have fulfilled my "life expectancy" of 72 years, then adjusted this up or down according to my profile vis-a-vis (my car-rental charge card) these fifteen parameters:

1. The employed outlive the laid-off
I assume being retired counts the same as being employed, but only if you retired voluntarily. If you retired as a result of a lay-off, you're meat.

+ 2 years for me. Ditto for Karen.

2. Married people outlive singles

I am totally, happily married. Furthermore, I have the wife par excellence. +5 years for me.

3. Women with husbands their own age outlive cougars

For me, irrelevant. +0.

4. People who sleep less outlive people who sleep a lot

Oh-oh. I certainly want to sleep a lot. Does 14 hours a day count as a lot? - 18 mos. for me.

5. Slim-waisted people outlive big-waisted people

Oh-oh again. -8 years for me. Okay, okay ... -10 years!

6. Optimists outlive pessimists

Usually, I would say +2 years here, depression notwithstanding. But looking back over previous answers, I'd say +6 mos, tops.

7. People who move outlive people who sit

I'd say this is a wash. I get my own beer, tap my feet and drum my fingers a lot. +0.

8. Churchgoers outlive non-churchgoers

Doom. -10 years for me. Although, I did go to Mass almost every day during the school year from age six to age 13. Does that still count?

9. Mormons outlive non-Mormons

Double doom. -5 years for me. Although, in this case, that's a good deal, IMHO.

10. The rich outlive the poor

Well, yeah! I'd say we're pretty squarely in the middle. Maybe + 6 mos.

11. Light drinkers outlive abstainers

Yes, and therefore, logically, heavy drinkers outlive light drinkers. +5 years.

12. TV avoiders outlive TV devotees

Like you'd want to live without TV - don't kid a kidder! -10 years.

13. Hawaii residents outlive everyone else in the United States

Never even been there. -5 years.

14. Women outlive men

Oh, crap! -5 years.

15. Literate people outlive illiterate people

Just how literate do you have to be? I can read. I even have a valid library card. I'm giving myself a +5 years, here.

All in all, I'd say this is pretty good news. According to my own calculations, I should have been dead for twenty-eight and a half years already! Considering, I feel pretty chipper! I think I'm going back and raising my "optimism" score back to plus two years!

Homeopathic Trauma Center

2010-07-12T18:37:00.001-06:00

The Homeopathic Trauma Center

We recently visited a friend who explained to me the basics of the practice of homeopathy. Homeopathy is one of what are called "alternative" health care modalities* (see referenced article).

The basis of homeopathy is the principle of similars. This principle is founded on the often-observed and common-sense occurrence of "the hair of the dog" cure, that is, that a little of whatever it was that made you sick may well cure you. In the case of "the hair of the dog," which is in fact, merely a specific mode of homeopathic therapy, the process works like this:

1) Go out and get roaring drunk;

2) Go home and "sleep it off;"

3) Wake to find your stomach missing, your ears ringing, your eyes permanently dilated, and your head ready to explode;

4) Have a beer or a shot of whiskey;

5) Symptoms almost magically abate or disappear entirely!

What is happening here is clearly a case of homeopathic resonance, in which the body's intrinsic knowledge of how to cure itself is liberated by re-exposure to a small amount of the causative agent. In this particular instance, the idea of "a small amount" is exhibited by having one and only one drink (which is often a reason for the failure of this method in the hands of enthusiastic amateurs.)

Skeptics say that what is happening here is something else entirely, namely that another drink merely makes you drunk again, and lets you become sober while awake. Never having had this experience myself, I can't give first-hand testimony, as stopping at one more drink never seems to work out for me.

With other ailments, homeopaths practice what is called "serial dilution and succussion," a technical-sounding name for a simple process by which the offending causative agent (poison, for example) is repeatedly diluted to higher and higher levels of dilution. After each dilution, the new, diluted solution is "succussed." Succussion is a violent shaking of the dilution including actually impacting a solid surface to "shock" the diluting agent (usually water) into remembering the molecular structure of the causative agent (i.e., the poison.) Even though the solution resulting from successive dilutions may have not even one molecule of the original causative agent (poison) left in the solution, and even though there is no physical difference between succussed water and plain water, homeopathy has demonstrated time and again that the resulting succussed water will ease or often cure the target condition.

The point of homeopathy is that exposing the patient to a smaller version or amount of whatever caused the ailment or condition will ease or even cure his problem!

Having learned the basis of homeopathy, and having discovered the very minimal requirements to be a homeopathic practitioner in many locales, I realized there was a vast market for homeopathic treatment of physical insults that has never been tapped: trauma. So, the following is my outline for a homeopathic trauma center, to be franchised in metropolitan areas throughout the country. I fully expect to become rich from this idea, not to mention doing a great deal of good for my fellow man.

I imagine a normal kind of ER in which ambulances bring in patients who have suffered traumatic injuries. They are guided in on stretchers to small treatment cubicles where a qualified homeopath interviews and treats them as follows:

"What seems to be the problem tonight?"

"I've been shot through my shoulder!"

"Do you know what kind of gun was used?"

"What the hell difference does that make?"

"There's no reason to be hostile! We're here to help you! It's critical for your successful treatment to know the caliber of gun that was used in your injury!"

"I don't know ... a big one! Probably a nine millie!"

"Let's have a look at that wound ... hmm, yes ... I agree that this seems to be a wound caused by a nine millimeter bullet. Just a second."

The therapist turns to his supply cabinet, and withdraws a 22-caliber pistol, turns back and shoots the patient through the shoulder again.

"So, how's that feel?"

"That's great, doc! Wow, who'd have thought?"

"Fine, good, good. Now go to the front desk to arrange payment, and be sure to come back or have your regular homeopath shoot you every day for the next week or so."

"Okay! And, thanks again, doc!"

"That's what we're here for!"

Another scenario:

Ambulance attendant: "She was run over by a city bus. Twice!"

Emergency homeopath: "Okay, is she stable?"

"Yeah, we got her stabilized on the way in!"

"Good. Don't take her to a treatment room; take her back out to the parking lot and take her off the gurney!"

"What?"

"You heard me! Get this woman out there onto the pavement, now, man; a life may be at stake, here!"

The ambulance attendant scurries to do as he's been ordered, and quickly gets the patient situated in the driveway adjacent to the ER. He looks around for the attending Homeopath, and sees him driving toward the patient in a Smart For Two. The attendant looks on in shock as the doctor drives directly over the patient, then backs up, running over her again!

"Oh my God! What the hell do you think you're doing!"

The ER homeopath steps out of his tiny car, and holds out his hand to the patient, who sits up, shakes her head a little, then stumbles to her feet.

"Oh, thank you doctor! I needed that!"

"It's the least I could do, my dear. Now don't forget to have someone drive over you tomorrow on a motorcycle, and you'll be right as rain!"

The ambulance attendant swoons, but is recovered by the ER homeopath by way of showing him the whole procedure on a little tiny video on his cell phone.

I can almost imagine a great TV series!

---------------------------------------

* modality = crap

Real, True, Actual Headlice

2010-06-29T23:22:00.001-06:00

"Gum goots designed with a blast to charge mobile phones"

Reuters

Your guess is as good as mine.

"Singer murdered after denying he was dead"

Reuters

Now, if it was prior to denying he was dead, that would be news!

"Oil broker banned after buying binge"

"Britain's financial regulator has fined and banned a former broker for manipulating oil prices by buying more than 7 million barrels while on a drinking binge."

Reuters

He's now being treated for severe intestinal distress.

"Inmate who ate cellmate's lung gets thirty years jail"

Reuters

"... with a very, very nervous new cell mate."

"Lion burger stirs ire"

Reuters

"South Africans have no pride" says paper.

"Man, 81, accused of machete chase near taco stand"

Given first warning to keep machete chases in parks where they belong.

"Off-duty cop thwarts chain-wielding robber at KFC"

Forces man to move activities to "Machete-Chase Park."

"Red light cameras catch police in western Iowa"

After years of trying to avoid the state.

"Cops: Drunk pair push stroller with kids, bayonet"

Now, if it had been kids and an automatic rifle or maybe a cute little Sig/Sauer automatic, that would have been okay.

"Psychic octopus picks Germany to beat Argentina, England"

Reuters UK

Not at soccer, mind you; this is Germany we're talkin' about.

"British beauty queen stripped of crown for lying"

Reuters UK

Turns out she's been telling the truth all along.

"Japan urges more dads to swap desks for diapers"

Reuters UK

Impact on office landscapes, odors unknown.

"US Embassy owes almost £4 million in UK congestion charges"

Reuters UK

An amount that's nothing to sneeze at; the Americans should cough up the dough.

"Dutch bring love of camping to World Cup"

Reuters UK

FIFA rules "pitching tents" okay, camp fires, "cumbaya" prohibited.

"Now scientists read your mind better than you can"

Reuters UK

No news here. Move along.

"Granny tasered in bed by police sues Oklahoma City"

The Oregonian

Kinky woman shocked by officers' behavior.

"Police seek man accused of several elder abuse cases"

The Hillsboro Argus

Perhaps they should look in the Oklahoma City Police Dept?

"Oregon State Penitentiary geese lose some of their flock"

Salem Statesman / Journal

Judge had warned they were a flight risk.

"Victims in officer-involved stabbing, shooting married"

The Hillsboro Argus

Variation on shotgun wedding conducted in Oklahoma City nursing home.

"Deadline nears approaching for Oregon petition signatures"

KGW News Channel 8 Portland

Is it pretty nearly fast approaching?

"Beaverton couple's dog narrowly escapes coyote"

Fox 12 Oregon

Will be able to remain in U.S.

The eleventh hour fast approaches

2010-05-25T12:46:00.002-06:00

Anyone who has ever watched "America's Funniest Home Videos" (I know this from talking to such people, as I would never stoop to watchig this sort of thing myself!) knows that the average guy and gal has a very poor understanding of basic physics. Simple principles such as "what goes up must come down," and concepts such as momentum, recoil, and bending strength seem completely foreign to them.

This reflects itself in our sloppy use of language.

A confusion between velocity and proximity is reflected in the expression "the deadline fast approaches." The speed at which the deadline approaches is a constant. If it seems to be accelerating as it nears, this is a function of procrastination and maybe perspective, not change of speed. Remember that nap you took last Wednesday? The dealine was approaching just as "fast" then as it is now that your term paper is due tomorrow.

Another weakness in our education seems to be general math skills. Folks who bored me to tears explaining why the year 2001, not the year 2000*, was the beginning of the new millenium seem perfectly happy saying "we need to decide now, because this is the eleventh hour!"

It's only the eleventh hour? Relax, you've got lots of time! The first hour is from 12:00 to 12:59, the second hour is from 1:00 to 1:59, and so-on, so the eleventh hour is therefore from 10:00 to 10:59, right? You've got over an hour to do whatever it is that needs to be done. But don't lolly-gaggle, because after that, the deadline will be fast approaching!

On a totally different tack, why do people say "on a totally different tact?" Do they plan on insulting me soon? For that matter, why do people say "penultimate" when what they mean is "really, really ultimate ... I'm not kidding!" The correct word here would be "ultimatest," related to "uniquest" and "firstest."

But I digress.

----------------------------

* Contrary to these spoil-sports' notions, there was a year zero which was, in fact recognized in the traditional Jewish calendar as the first year of Adam's life. But the reconciliation of the traditional Jewish calendar and the Gregorian calendar made all that irrelevant, as it meant the abandonment of 165 years, just as the change from Julian to Gregorian meant the "loss" of eleven days. Who the hell cares? I just wanted to see the zeroes come up!

Dead Boom

2010-04-30T21:42:00.003-06:00

Dead Boom

Everyone's in a tizzy about the looming collapse of the Social Security System (SSS). This panic is based on the generally-agreed-upon unsustainable burden that retirement entitlements paid by the system will put on current and later generations of workers.

The concern has been exacerbated by the recent news that the Social Security Trust Fund (SSTF) is now in a negative cash-flow, that is, it is now paying out more than it is taking in. Only two years ago, this watershed was projected to occur in the year 2016, but it occurred instead in 2010, fully six years earlier than expected. This is in large part due to the weakness of the national economy and the high unemployment rate.

It would be good to keep in mind, though, that the Social Security System does not now, nor has it ever, relied on debt or contributions from the general fund to pay current benefits, in spite of what you no doubt have heard from conservative commentators who simply detest the whole idea of Social Security.

That it has recently started to pay out more than it is taking in is just another way of saying that, since its inception in 1935 up to last month (March 2010), a period of 75 years, the SSS has run a net surplus. In some recent years, that surplus has exceeded $150 billion. In the past decade, the SSS surplus exceeded the entire, astronomical Wall Street/banking bailout amount.

Starting this month, (April 2010), the system is now drawing down reserves to pay benefits. It is currently estimated that these reserves will continue to pay benefits at the current level (including adjustments for inflation) to current and new retirees through the year 2037, a date which is certainly just as subject to change as was the watershed cash-flow projection.

But, assuming that projected 2037 date holds, the Social Security System will have been self-funding for over 100 years! No other Federal Government program can make that claim. Up until last month, SSS reserves were invested in U.S. Bonds and T-Bills. As such, they have been invested very conservatively, earning a low but reliable interest for the SSTF.

On the other hand, as a holder of government securities, the SSTF is in essence a lender to the Federal Government, and the SSS bonds and t-bills represent a small share of the National Debt. As these assets are sold to pay current obligations, the SSTF will will decline in value, but the National Debt will also decline at exactly the same rate.

When conservative commentators say that "there is no Trust Fund," or that "current benefits are paid for by current earners," they are fudging the truth to make their case. Up to 1965, the SSS was kept "off the books," that is to say, it was not accounted for as part of the federal budget. It neither contributed to the deficit nor to the surplus, and was truly a trust fund, separately accounted for.

But due to the large deficits during the Johnson administration attributable to the expense of the Viet Nam War and a recession, the Congress decided to end that practice and thereafter to include the SSTF in the federal budget. This was a very cynical ploy to help mask the depth of the general-fund deficit by offsetting a large part of it with the annual surpluses then being run by the SSS. This has been the case ever since, a period of 45 years.

All the presidents and all the congressmen who have served since Lyndon Johnson was president have quietly accepted the financial smoke-screen provided by the SSS. The change was, and is, of course, merely a book-keeping trick, but far from Social Security being a drag on our national budget, it has in fact been a cash cow, and every politician in Washington knows it. The passion for privitization of the sysyem only gained traction once it became apparent that at some point the system would no longer be available to subsidize Congress's voracious appetite for ear-marked spending.

It is very common that front-end expenditures by Government pay for all the research and capital investment of new industries until they are shown to make a profit, then market zealots insist that they be turned over to private industry. (Railroads, aircraft, mineral exploration, internet, etc.)

This is a case of the mirror-image. Cynical politicians have wanted to keep the SSS in-house only so long as it was making money. As soon as it started to lose money, they wanted no part of it.

But, without a doubt, the system cannot continue as it is now. We have approximately 27 years to make some systemic changes, and again, in spite of what is commonly said about Social Security, it is not the fatal third rail that it is claimed to be. It has been claimed throughout its history that the SSS would "run out of money" soon, meaning in the 40's, the 50's, the 60's, the 70's and most notably, the 80's when the system came as close as it ever had to negative cash flows. In each case, the president and the congress hammered out revisions and adjustments to the FICA payroll taxes and benefits schedules necessary to ensure the system survived.

Unfortunately, three trends have conspired to overcome these corrections and imperil the system. First, of course, is the baby boom. There is now a much larger cadre of retirees receiving benefits as a percentage of current workers paying into the system than there has ever been in the system's history. And this ratio will only increase in the future.

Second, Americans' life spans have significantly increased during the period in which Social Security has existed. This substantially increases the total benefits individuals will receive from the system over time.

Third, it has been politically expedient to make changes to the system to increase rather than decrease benefits, and to broaden the population eligible for benefits.

Each of these trends is reversible, and each is somewhat self-correcting.

As the end of the SSTF looms nearer, the political liabilities of not acting to fix the system will become greater than the political benefits of increasing benefits. There are already indications of this happening. In system corrections in the past, incremental changes including reductions of benefits have been accepted by program recipients without disastrous consequences for the politicians of the time, so long as the changes have been cast as non-political and necessary for the survivial of the system.

The life span increases of the past century have substantially slowed down, and show signs statistically of leveling out. It is unreasonable to assume that the 25% to 30% increases in life expectancy experienced by working Americans in the last century will be repeated. On the other hand, it perfectly reasonable to raise the retirement age such that the period of retirement (and thus dependency on the system) as a percentage of their overall life-span remains constant (or, if fiscally necessary, even declines). Should life-spans continue to increase, this adjustment can be made repeatedly.

Finally, at some point, the "baby boomers" will be dead. I expect everyone will be relieved, if only because they won't have to hear about them (us) all the time! Although there is an "echo boom" or bulge in population in the next generation due to the children of the boomers coming of age, and eventually of course, retiring themselves, the "echo boom" is statistically a much less prominent bulge than the original boom, and any second-echo boom seems not to be materializing at all, due in part to a general decline in family size.

The "Dead Boom" of the passing of the baby boomers will be accompanied by the largest inter-generational transfer of wealth in the history of man. My grandparents supported their parents into retirement with virtually no outside help, but the effort left them with little beyond their basic needs. My parents supported my grandparents in their retirement with some help from the Social Security System, which began during my grandparents' lives. My parents' lives, therefore were somewhat less burdened by the retirement of their own parents than the generations which preceded them, and their retirement while not luxurious, was comfortable. My parents retired, completely without help from my generation. Thus I and my parents have benefitted substantially from the existance of the Social Security System by way of the reduced burden placed on us by aging parents, whether or not my generationreceives benefits directly.

Boomers, for the most part, are not only retiring with an unprecedented prosperity and negligible dependece on their children, but when they die, we will leave behind us assets substantially greater than the contributions made by their children to the Social Security System. For at least the third generation, boomers' children will be beneficiaries of the Social Security System well before they themselves will retire.

Yes, it is necessary to make some changes in the Social Security System. But the system has worked a social and financial miracle on the opportunities for the freedom and independence of both working families and the elderly in our nation for nearly a century.

Don't panic, and don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

Good, Better, Best

2010-04-29T18:06:00.002-06:00

Good, Better, Best

"We have the best pancakes in Sandusky!"

Yeah, well, unfortunately, ALL the pancakes in Sandusky suck, so having the best ones available there isn't saying much. (My apologies to Sandusky pancake-makers; I have no idea whether you are culinary geniuses or actually dwell in pancake hell, I'm just using you for the example!)

Whereas, if you were to say, "We're in Sandusky, and we have very good pancakes," you're really saying something! Especially if everyone else is serving drek for pancakes!

But in modern America, simply doing a good job or doing well at something isn't acceptable. At all. You must try to do better. You must give it your best. No real concern whether that's really any good or not, so long as it's better than the next guy, and, if possible, the best of all of them! Even if they're all crap, you're at the top of the pile! You win!

We must always strive to be excellent. All of us! We must all excel! Here's the dictionary's list of synonyms for excel:

surpass, exceed, transcend, outdo, top, outstrip, beat, outmatch, outclass

That's right, kids, each and every one of you must outdo, beat, exceed and outclass all the others! You can't settle for less!

Or, if you want to just SETTLE, you can be good at whatever you do!

There's No Comparison

2010-04-29T17:36:00.002-06:00

There's No Comparison

This lame expression was MIA for a while in my experience, and how glad I was!

But "there's no comparison" has begun popping up again in headlines, in political speeches, and particularly in advertising.

I guess I don't really oppose the actual phrase; for example: "God - there's no comparison!" would be a fair and accurate use in my opinion.

But in advertising (and politics), the phrase invariably either follows or is followed by an extensive comparison. "The new Buick Codger-Wagon and the Toyota Accelera ... there's no comparison! The Buick has sequential spatial positioning - the Toyota doesn't! The Buick looks really cool - the Toyota doesn't! The Buick slows down when you press on the brake pedal - the Toyota doesn't!" etc.

I also am getting pretty fed up with the use of inverse math, such as "product X is three times less effective than product Y!"

What the hell does that mean? "Three times as effective," I understand. "One third as effective," I understand. "Three times less effective," is jibberish.

"I'm very sad!" "Well, take this pill, and you'll be five times LESS SAD!" So, will I be happy? Or will I just be less sad, then less sad again, then again less sad, then less sad even than that, and finally less sad than THAT? Wow! That's really a lot less sad! Unless it isn't.

Why stop there? If you like "x times less sad," it should work with any number, right? If something might be twice as environmentally friendly, it could also be one-half as environmentally friendly, right? So, if it could be two-times less environmentally friendly, it could also be one-half-times less environmentally friendly, I'd imagine. I wouldn't know.

There's no comparison!

They Come In The Night

2010-02-16T22:31:00.003-07:00

One of the things I always liked about the gorgeous Colorado summer nights was the din of thousands of crickets chirruping away. I don't know why, but that sound has always stirred something in me that brings out the same safe, homely feeling that the smell of wood smoke and the sound of the forced-air furnace bring in the winter.

I always appreciated the odd individual cricket who continued chirruping the next morning all by himself. I pictured a pie-eyed bachelor staggering home from a night-long bender, but still, optimistically, lookin' for love.

When the crickets were in good form, on reasonably warm evenings, I imagined that I was a member of an alien exploration team that had just landed on this planet earlier that day, looked around, and found it quite hospitible and non-threatening. Then, night sets in and something ... something ... something starts to surround our landing site. Something that makes a terrifying, deafening, relentless sound. What is it? Will it attack? That sound! That sound! Aaaaeeeii - make it stop!

There seem to be fewer crickets here in Tualatin. But their sonic ecological niche is taken up by frogs. Just as with crickets and college students, once the weather gets warm enough, and their thoughts turn to love, they rise up each evening and start their merry chorus.

We live just across the street from a nature preserve (a tiny one) that includes a small pond on a stream. So the frogs in question are not just randomly out there, as the crickets were in Colorado. No, they are specifically our neighbors. We've asked them to hold it down, but their crazy partying goes on all night.

Actually, quite the contrary. We very much enjoy the sound the frogs make. I like it for several reasons. First, I know frogs and other amphibians are under severe ecological stress around the world, and it delights me that they seem to have here something of ... well ... a refuge. I'm honored to live by them in their time of need.

Second, they're basically invisible. Karen and I have gone over to the pond to see if we could spot them (sounds like there are millions of them there!). We took a powerful flashlight but couldn't see a one! They're just tiny tree-frogs, each one no larger than the first joint of your thumb (your thumb, I might add ... my thumb is like two frogs!) I think there must be a handful of common or bullfrogs in there, too, as there is a distictive bass section in this orchestra. I thought maybe I could take a picture and we might be able to spot a frog or two in the flash-lit photo that we hadn't been able to see in person with the help of a mere flashlight. When I loaded the pictures onto my computer, we couldn't see any frogs there, either. But what we could see, completely surrounding us in the trees and bushes, was dozens of sets of glowing frog eyes.

Third, I finally put two and two together and came to realize that maybe part of the resaon we don't have many crickets is that we've got frogs. Huh? In which case, I compliment the chef for being so thoughtful as to make both predator and prey so delightfully chirpy.

Finally, frogs are yet another of the many, many tiny indications that we don't live in Colorado any more. So many people bemoan the sameness of places in our country, particularly urban places. But I can tell you, if you walk away from malls and away from suburban strip centers and away from tailored city parks, Oregon is much different than Colorado. Rain! Trees! Water in the rivers ... what a concept! Frogs!

Grandchildren!

Me and my friend Theo

2010-02-09T00:03:00.001-07:00

I thought you might enjoy a picture of happiness. Me and my friend, Theo (he's the little one).

Mike

Groundhog Day

2010-02-02T22:06:00.003-07:00

Today, as I often do on Groundhog Day, I watched the movie "Groundhog Day."

I have loved this movie since it came out. This movie has slowly been climbing my list of favorite movies, and now it is very near the top. It takes repeated viewings and much time to to be sure one's love of a specific movie is true love and not just passing infatuation. For me, "Groundhog Day" has not only passed that test, but grown in stature over the years. I know I'm not the only one who thinks "Groundhog Day" is more than just a piece of romantic fluff, more than a payday comedy.

Roger Ebert says that the value of a movie is not what it's about, but HOW it's about what it's about. I can see his point; I imagine he sees maybe hundreds of movies a year, and with that kind of exposure (so to speak) to movies, you would have to look for the sub-text and technique of the movies you watch or you'd lose your mind. But I think seeing so many movies sometimes puts the professional movie reviewer out of touch with the average movie-goer as regards what is of value and what has merit. Not to mention what's fun to watch.

"Citizen Kane" has won many, many surveys of important movies; here, I think what Ebert says is likely true. Surely not all that many people really care about the life and death of a fictional 19th/20th century newspaper publisher/editor. But anyone can see that "Citizen Kane" has visual impact, and a great presence. But, for me, the story is boring. Story-wise, one viewing, maybe two at the outside, was enough. I've seen it many more times than that, but always to appreciate it as a work of cinematic art, not for the story, not as a movie, per se.

"To Kill A Mockingbird," on the other hand, is a movie I have watched even more often. It is also technically well made, and although not as experimental and flashy as "Citizen Kane," it is much more than merely competent as a cinematic work of art. But it the power and emotional connection of the story of "To Kill A Mockingbird" that draws me back again and again. It pulls me in every time, and fills me with love and respect, with shame and a desire to be a better person. And it must have this effect on others, too, as it wins the "favorite movie" title in polls at least as often as "Citizen Kane."

"Groundhog Day" is not in the same league as either of those movies. It is competently made (and it's fun to watch repeatedly to see some of the visual jokes and subtleties on screen), but like "To Kill A Mockingbird," it is its story which keeps me coming back. Every year, as I watch it again, I get at least one more small, new insight into the human condition, the meaning of life, and the way the world works. "Groundhog Day" always leaves me smiling, because it is, after all a comedy and a love story, but, like the television show "Northern Exposure," it also hangs in my mind for a day or two, feeling more significant and more spiritual than it seemed, speaking quiety to me of much more profound things.

Today, I realized two new things about "Groundhog Day."

First, every day that Phil the Weatherman leaves behind, every February second that he lives through, ends for him when he wakes up the next day only to find that it is groundhog day again, but for the other people in that day just past, their lives go on in their alternate universe, and they have to deal with the detritus he has left behind while he makes his attitude adjustment about life. I imagine the world-wide headlines on February 3rd in the universe where the two Phils plunge over the cliff in the quarry to their fiery demise: "Beloved Groundhog Punxetawny Phil Dead at the Hands of Lunatic Pittsburgh Weatherman," for example. Imagine the real grief Phil the groundhog's owners and/or handlers must have felt, and the anger and resentment they felt toward Phil the weatherman's selfishness. Seriously.

Second, I finally realized that I have always regretted that each of us doesn't have such a day, early in our adult life. A day that repeats over and over again, until we finally get over ourselves and get it right. How many days I've squandered while worrying about some previous day that somehow went wrong - a day that is over and done while I waste the day I'm living while wallowing in regret. How many times I have made the same mistakes over and over, casting many days of my life in much the same light in which Phil Connors saw his seemingly never-ending February 2nd. How I wish I could have had a practice day that repeated as often as it took to get it right. To get me right.

Turns out, they're all practice days.

Wednesday Rant: More on Time -or- Moron Time

2009-12-30T15:04:00.003-07:00

There is a dirty little secret in the computer business that no one ever talks about, but everybody knows about (so how can it be a secret then, you might ask?)

It is this: Computer people, meaning programmers and computer sales forces, lie about how long computers take to do things all the time.

You've seen the ad for some bank, where the voice-over says "Sharon is about to demonstrate how to check for an on-line balance report from Citi-Bank." Then Sharon pushes one button on her computer and her bank balance appears instantly.

Horse pucky.

Yes, you can accomplish this exactly this way, after you have navigated to their site, logged on, navigated to your account, navigated to the "display current balance" control, (at each step, waiting for their server, your isp's server, and your own sluggard computer to perform the requested tasks), paused briefly to turn on the camera, and then pushed the "one button" that finishes the task.

Similarly, many user programs often make use of a "progress bar," a sort of horizontal display space on the page in which a colored line grows from left to right to indicate how the program and your computer are progressing with some task. This is most often used with installation software, but many other tasks that can take a long time to accomplish use the technique so that you know the process is still under way, i.e. that your computer hasn't just hung up and frozen in place.

Problem is, the progress across the screen generally bears little or no relationship with the actual progress of the process underway. Much more often than not, the progress bar will fill in very quickly, zooming from empty to maybe 80% or 90% filled in, in just a few seconds, then stopping there, showing no further life (or maybe just a flashing segment in the progress bar, or a perpetually redrawn elipsis after the words "please wait"), sometimes literally for HOURS!

Some programs accompany this display with an actual numerical read-out, indicating that the process has zoomed to, say 89% complete, then just stopped there for minutes or days.

Is it really beyond the skills of these software companies to provide at least a moderately accurate progress bar ... one that represents time expended vs. time left, rather than whatever it is that they're assessing now? (Like what? Maybe files executed vs. files remaining? You know, four hundred out of four-hundred and one files have been executed, so we're 99.75% complete, never mind that the first four hundred were two-lines of code each, and that the last one is the actual execution of the install program?)

It would help if they would try their progress bar out on a computer representative of the ones actual users are actually using, too, instead of the quad-processor machines with terabyte drives that they use for their work.

I know that these programs are run on a wide variety of computers with widely varying hardware setups and drive space available, and so-on, but is the current state of affairs really the best they can do?

Also, it would be nice if there were just a little icon, like, oh, I don't know, maybe an hour glass symbol or something, that would indicate that something is underway while the program is running but with no user-visible output. Oh wait, there already is such an icon! Then why don't they use it? Microsoft is the worst about this.

Oh, I feel so much better now.

I Look Really Old or As If I'm From The Future

2009-12-30T15:01:00.002-07:00

I was picking up a prescription recently, and the clerk asked me for my birthdate as usual, to confirm my identity. I responded, "ten, eighteen, forty-seven." She then asked "Nineteen forty-seven?"

For a second, I was just stunned, but I think I recovered quickly and simply said, "uh-huh."

Honey, Black Friday, War Against the Consumer Part 3

2009-12-07T17:43:00.002-07:00

Having the flu recently (pause here to accept uncharitable thoughts about who gets the swine flu), I have been more than usually sensitive to the idea of touching surfaces possibly infected by others, and also, of course, touching surfaces and leaving behind possible infection for others.

Some time ago, after the AIDS virus became widely known, I recognized that public bleeding (such as a bloody nose or a playground scrape) had become a social "no-no" akin to dressing in a raincoat and a pair of pants exclusive of everything from the knees upwards. People who cut themselves would not ask for help, but would slink away to a corner and do their best to hold in their potentially fatal bodily fluid. I'm not a big fan of blood, my own or others', but that seems a shame ... maybe a little harsh and over-reactive.

But last weekend, out shopping with Karen and long recovered from the flu, I was in Costco (yeah, I know, but what can I say?), when my nose started to drip (TMI?) So I whipped out my trusty pocket tissue and quietly blew my nose. I folded the tissue up and tucked it back into my pocket, then went right back to pawing over possible purchases. I did catch something out of the corner of my eye, though, and I looked up in time to see the last of several shopping mothers glaring at me with that expression you reserve for people who toot in the elevator.

I realized that I had made another faux pas (French for "enemy dad"). Apparently under the Homeland Security H1N1 Behavior Guidelines, runny noses, in these times of threat to home and country, are not to be dealt with as I had done, as I had done ever since I was trained not to just wipe my nose on the sleeeve of my shirt (by my wife.)

So, what does one do? I don't know! Go home, or better yet STAY home, is no doubt the preferred course, I guess, but my entire life, my nose has had a mind of its own and simply decides spontaneously and unexpectedly to start flowing like a FLOMAX commercial when and where it pleases. I thought always having a tissue in my pocket was ample defense, BUT NO! And, if I were to stay home were any chance of my nose running in public, I might never leave the house.

What's that you say? Same to you!

Anyway, as I returned to my shopping, I was even more aware of the fact the products literally at hand were likely disease infested death bombs disguised as 244-packs of diapers, and that took a lot of the fun out of the Costco experience for me.

All this came to mind again when later in the week, we were having something for breakfast which called for the application of honey. (Wait for it - I'll bring this home, I promise.)

Now, I'm reasonably careful with my honey, as I know it's a sticky, drippy substance that has to be managed with care. But try as I might, whenever I use honey, it starts appearing elsewhere in my life: on the table, on my elbow, in my hair,on my glasses, on the salt shaker, on the cover of our crosswork puzzle book, etc. It slowly propogates through the house, slowing down everything (although sweetly!) Soon, the only reasonable solution to the honey problem would be a firehose, except that, if you are diligent in wiping away those irritating stickinesses, in a day or two, they quit appearing, lulling you into a false sense of security and an appetite for MORE HONEY!

The parallel to the spreading of germs is obvious, I'm sure. Except for the sweet part.

So, I guess I can understand the Cheney-like sneers I got at the Costco store. I won't take them personally.

Sniff.

----------------------------------------

I love Thanksgiving more than any other holiday of the year.

Among other things, it is celebrated mainly by getting together to eat. How fine is that?

More important by far to me, it is the anniversary of the day I met Karen, my wife and best friend. Something to be thankful for, indeed.

But, also, it is one of the last holidays to be relatively unsullied by commercialism. I say relatively, because there's always been a smattering of old-fashioned grandmas shilling frozen pies and so on. But compared to Christmas, nothing!

But a few years ago, someone came up with the notion of "Black Friday," the day after Thanksgiving and supposedly the day that retailers finally get out of the red for the year. Although the name harkens back to Black Thursday, which is probably not the message you want to convey to cheer up the holiday season.

But, this year especially, Black Friday has been spreading like some kind of insidous and secretive life form. Or honey! Yes, that's it, Black Friday is just like honey!

All of a sudden, it's everywhere! The crack-of-dark sales on Black Friday morning have edged earlier and earlier, until now they're beginning actually late in the day on Thursday. HEY! THAT'S THANKSGIVING! LEAVE IT ALONE!

There have always been a few godless communists who keep their shops open on Thanksgiving, but now, I guess with the depression-like economy, there is more and more pressure on shop keepers to indimidate their employees into skipping that second helping, tearing themselves away from Tiny Tim, and coming in to earn their benefits-free pittance on Thanksgiving proper.

This is just part of the trend to spread Christmas out thinner and thinner, starting the frenzied consumer orgy earlier and earlier in order to maximize sales opportunities. It's aggravated, of course this year because Black Friday 2009 is likely to fall somewhere in 2012. If at all.

But does this really work? Doesn't it just spread the same sales thinner and thinner over a longer and longer period of time? What's the point?

Well, the point is, if your competitor is doing it, and if you're not doing it, you will lose sales to him. There may be no more sales overall, but there will be fewer for you, and more for him. The pressure is on you to open your store not only on Sundays and 24/7, but on holidays, too, even one previously simple day that we set aside just for families and gratitude.

Ah, the joys of capitalism.

But don't worry. The free market will fix it.

-----------------------------------

And not only that, but with labor costs as high as they are and payrolls stripped to the bone, now every store has adopted Kroger Rule #2, which is this: additional cash register lines will not be opened until customers can be seen putting things back onto the shelves in frustration and disgust.

(Kroger Rule #1, of course, is that flimsy cardboard product promotional displays are always to be placed across from one another in the narrowest aisles. A corollary to this is Rule #1a, which is to hire cheerful, matronly women to clog up the aisles nearest the busiest sections of the store by cooking and giving away Jimmy Dean sausage samples.)

Truly, I believe store managers have been told to wait until people waiting in line to check out are becoming surly or have completely blocked the cross-aisle before calling for more checkers. Not only does this keep down personnel costs, but it also keystones the long-term stategy of training us to prefer checking ourselves out at the robo-aisle. If they could only get us to completely stop buying produce ... it's so hard to put a UPC on that stuff!

Make No Assumptions

2009-11-17T15:39:00.002-07:00

I think I've written in this space before about the signs on the back of the street-sweepers in Colorado Springs. They say something like "Danger: This Vehicle May Stop, Back Up, or Turn Left or Right At Any Time Without Warning." What is a rational reaction to a sign like this? My analysis of that sign is, if you're in traffic and close enough behind the street-sweeper to read it, the only rational thing to do is stop your car immediately, get out, and leave the state.

I was put in mind of these signs when I heard again last night on television the phrase "you should make no assumptions." I have confronted that advice several times in my life, and I always roll my eyes inwardly when it comes up. Inwardly, because when I've heard it said in my own real life, the person saying it is invariably someone with decisive authroity over me who would not take actual eye-rolling cheerfully. My Teacher. My boss. My drill instructor.

Really? Make no assumptions? Am I to start every day as if I were an infant again, and ignore all that I have learned about my environment to date? Should I cling to my bed in terror that gravity might no longer be in force? Will my shoes burst into flames soon? If I combed my hair differently, could I see out of the eye in the back of my head?

Or maybe I'm being too literal, and what they really mean is that I should make no assumptions about whatever it is that they're talking about specifically? Like, I should make no assumptions about (in the case of the television cop show) the nature of good and evil, the location of the police department headquarters, the safety or effectiveness of my sidearm, whether these stairs I'm running up are well-nailed-down, that my partner will understand me if I continue to speak in English, and so on, ad infinitum.

It's a ridiculous thing to say. Of course we have to make assumptions, or we could only stop in place and drool quietly with a quizzical look on our collective faces.

What is meant by the person saying "make no assumptions" is this: "If this fails, I will point out the incorrect assumption you made which led to failure and remind you that I said not to make any assumptions, thus placing the blame entirely on you for your refusal to follow my good advice." Everyone instictively knows this, and therefore realizes that when they hear the instruction "make no assumptions," they have just been passed the lit stick of dynamite.

This falls into the category of common phrases that we grudgingly accept because they are far too well rooted in our language to be excised now, but which we also all know to be both logically impossible, and politically necessary.

Another, maybe more common example, is the demand that one give no less than 110%. This is used mostly in sports. It is a common training method for a runner to train to run as fast as he can, then be paired with a pacer who can run faster, and with whom the runner in training then is expected to keep up. That this works makes it apparent that one of two things must be true: either the runner was previously dogging it and was not, in fact, running as fast as he could before, or now he is giving 110%. You can see that, given that choice, the 110% thing can get good traction. (By the way, isn't it interesting that this has somehow stuck at 110%? I mean, if the rest of the athletes are giving 110%, why ask your team for the same? Demand 125%! 150%! 235%! There's really no limit, is there?)

When I was a little kid, I attended Catholic elementary schools. The report cards there had a series of grades such as "E" for excellent, "U" for unsatisfactory and so on. But to give the grading more depth and texture for the concerned parents, there were also several typical comments which the teacher could check off as applicable to particular children, such as "Bothers Other Children," "Is Disrespectful," and so-on. One that got plenty of check-marks on my reports was this: "Is Not Working Up To His Potential." There was a companion comment: "Works Beyond His Potential."

That one rarely got checked on my reports.

Imagine. "Works Beyond His Potential." I suppose that has to mean: "Cheats." But that's not the way it was used. It was intended to mean, essentially, "Gives 110%."

"Is Not Working Up To His Potential," on the other hand, meant: "Lazy." Whether the ability or inclination to work harder was within one's "potential" is problematic and was simply ignored, even though the evidence in my case clearly pointed to laziness being deeply ingrained into my potential. But, she who wears the wimple and blows the pitch-pipe calls the tune.

I'm sorry I brought it all up. "The Jury Shall Disregard The Last Statement."

The Victory of Marketing Over Common Sense

2009-09-25T16:36:00.001-06:00

The Victory of Marketing Over Common Sense

Manager
Red Robin Restaurant
10005 NE Cascades Parkway, Ste. A
Portland OR 97220

No one makes a burger quite as good as Red Robin, and none of Red Robin’s burgers is quite as good a the Bleu Ribbon Burger. This is not just my opinion, by the way, but an absolute fact.

Also, we have visited Red Robins all over the place, and the stores are consistently clean, cheery, enthusiastically decorated, and always have good service. We seldom have to wait very long, but not because the restaurant is empty … quite the contrary, it seems that Red Robins are always pretty busy.

Your store is no exception to these observations. Your wait staff was prompt, efficient, and courteous, and your store was quite pleasant.

But. You knew there was a “but” coming, didn’t you?

When we came to your store a couple of weeks ago, it was raining. As you probably know, this is not a novelty in Portland. We approached the door from the parking lot, as virtually every customer must do, and stood under the entry canopy only to be confronted with a sign that said we would have to walk around the building to enter from the other side. Which we did, getting even wetter in the process.

We were seated at a table very near to the exit door we were unable to enter. As we sat enjoying our lunch, we observed at least a dozen parties, probably close to fifty people, do the same thing we had done. They exited their car, scurried through the rain to the locked door, saw the sign, shook their heads, and then scurried in the rain around the building to the entrance on the opposite side.

I know the building “fronts” on NE Cascades Parkway, but during the time we were there, we saw no one enter who had parked in the very limited number of spaces on the street there. In point of fact, your customers virtually all park in the ample lot provided on the north-east side of the store.

Why in the world do you insist on making the majority your loyal customers walk entirely around your store to enter? Often, in the rain. And yet again when they leave.

Someone at corporate probably told you that the “entrance must face the thoroughfare.” Pshaw! The entrance must face the customer. There are many excellent locales with successful restaurants which enter from the parking lot side, away from the major street frontage. Among those that come quickly to mind are several in Bridgeport, virtually all Olive Gardens, the Red Robin in Sherwood, and several restaurants in our home town, Tualatin. Each of them has a “presence” on the street side, but also has a cheerful and well-lit entrance on the side where virtually all customers enter … from the parking lot.

In your particular store, it would take little or no effort to simply open the north-east door and allow patrons to enter and leave there freely. Why not?

Anyway, we still had great burgers that day! Keep up the good work!

Your loyal but soggy customer,

J. Michael Riley
8720 SW Tualatin Rd. #223
Tualatin OR 97062

jmyke2000@comcast.net

We Can't Afford Ourselves

2009-09-03T16:53:00.005-06:00

My son-in-law disagrees, but I still think the cost of everything emerges from only two sources: labor and materials. And, if you think about it, in a world absent human society, materials would be free. Lumber? There are trees, take them. Food? There are berries, there are fish, gather them and eat. What is the cost of these? Your labor, wholly.

With the whole of society wrapped around us, though, others do these things for us. Farmers farm and harvest the results of their labor. Miners dig, truckers truck, refiners smelt, workers in rolling mills make the ingots into sheet steel, and, until recently, auto workers made the steel into cars. The car, the steel, the ingot, the ore ... each is free except for the effort put into turning them from an inaccessible object in an unusable form, into a useful object such as a car, which we desire to buy.

So, if things cost too much, what do we do, we capitalists?

One tool from our bag of tricks is to automate the processes of labor. There is a necessary injection of capital here, to set up the factories and build the robots to do the work of grinding out the products, work which was previsouly done more expensively by people, but in the long run, the robots are often a cheaper means to the same end. So the costs of production go down, and the costs of the objects produced can also go down.

(A word here about moving jobs to foreign countries in order to employ cheaper labor. This gives a temporary edge to whoever does it first, but as with automation, as soon as one's competitors do the same thing, the advantage is lost, and the need to economize on labor is again confronted. Thus, sweat-shop stichery moves to an even more impoverished locale ad infinitum. Except, just as robot help can only be made so efficient, there are not an infinitely large numer of poorer and poorer nations out there.)

We ARE capitalists, though, so we don't pass along ALL of the savings generated by our ingenuity to our customers. We keep some of the difference for ourselves. The cost to us goes down $100, we lower the cost to our customers maybe $80, and the stuff sells like hot cakes. And, lo and behold, we can sell the stuff for less, yet make more money by selling more, at a higher profit per item! Yay!

What has been done is to lower the cost of labor. But for the next business in line, it has instead simply lowered the cost of the thing, which, from their point of view, is not labor, but the raw material for their step of the process.

And so it has gone for generations in the developed world. At each step of the chain of effort from seed to table, from mine to highway, from author's mind to readers' minds, crafty and ingenious entrepreneurs have devised creative methods for lowering their costs of production while raising their profits. For every succeeding buyer, whether that buyer is another in the chain of producers, for whom the product is but another raw material, or that buyer is the untimate consumer, for whom the whole cumulative effort has resulted in some material goods, the pride of our society has been to reduce the effort, and thereby the cost, of the production of goods.

Great.

But what does this mean in the great scheme of things?

The total cost of each thing produced is made up of some percentage labor and some percentage material. If, at each and every step in the process, we successfully strive to reduce that percentage which is attributable to labor, then the percentage attributable to materials must perforce rise.

Imagine that geniuses in every industry figure out a way to lower the labor costs of production to zero. All fabrication, storage, shipping, stocking, etc. is done with such perfect efficiency that those processes cost nothing. Then, the cost of anything could be set equal to the cost of the materials as purchased from the previous step in the chain of production. Of, course, being capitalists, we would expect some profit to be added along the way, so there would be some added cost.

Hopefully small.

And if the previous step in the process were also perfectly efficient, and so-on back to the ore pit or the seed drill or the mind of the artist, what then? Well, then, the cost of the final product would be made up entirely of profit.

Leave it for a moment to ponder what one would do with profit in such a world, not to mention what would motivate everyone involved to work, because this is just an exercise, and of course impossible.* But the effort to minimize costs of production is an effort to head in this direction.

Is this a good thing?

Well, in the interim, while all these production efficiencies are being made, progress is uneven, and some industries along the way from resource to consumer have been quicker to economize on their means of production than others. It is to be assumed that their owners benefit more and sooner from this, but more to the point, for those who add value during the OTHER steps along the way, their labor now seems unduly high in cost compared to the reduced cost of materials in their step of the process. And the incentive grows for the capitalists who own their industry to minimize their own labor costs (even if, maybe especially if, it is their own labor!)

In other words, their supplier has just lowered the cost of widgets they use to manufacture gadgets. But their labor costs remain what they have always been. So the cost of their product out the door now consists of a much higher percentage of labor costs than materials costs. Any sane manager will be alarmed at this and seek to reduce labor costs.

To be sure, the cost of things everyone buys goes down. But much more to the point, the percentage burden of the work that is done which produces the funds used to buy those reduced-cost items has been increased by the very efforts of other industries to minimize their own labor costs, and thus raised the incentive for the reduction or elimination of labor costs for the later consumer/producer as well.

Over the last couple of generations (and maybe back as far as the beginning of the industrial revolution, although for a while that process created new things to consume, which simply increased the size of the pie and raised the demand for labor, but that phase seems to be over), this process has been going on apace in every imaginable industry, in every imaginable step in the process of production.

For those still at work, the cost of their work represents a target of inefficiency which must rationally be minimized.

So it is, that as we wallow in ridiculously inexpensive consumer goods from basic necessities like food to complex finished products like cars, we cannot afford the services of other human beings which generations past took for granted: beat cops, tailors, housekeepers, laundries. This pressure evinces itself in other areas not as the abscence of human services, but their extreme cost: health care, legal help, delivery service, child care, education.

What's the answer?

Well, I guess, there is no answer so long as we don't see this as a problem. Do we long for a time when one's wages relative to the cost of groceries or a car or a radio were very small, in exchange for the opportunity to be able to hire a nanny to care for our kids? Would we swap cheap electronic entertainment systems for a beat cop to patrol our neighborhoods?

Some would. Others, not.

I don't know how I feel about this.

(*... and fodder for another rant.)

In The Now / Happiness

2009-09-03T16:31:00.003-06:00

I have had an odd feeling from time to time recently. When I first felt it, it took me a little bit to recognize it; it had been a while since I had this feeling before. I probed around inside, like you do with a sore tooth: 'What IS that?'

Then I remembered a poem I had written years ago. Here it is:

Afghanistan (A Few Moments Without Fear)

For just a few minutes.
So short a time,but so fine.

As I write this,
I can still close my eyes
And see the little dance I'd do.

Oddly, though, the dancer is
A woman young and slim,
And the dance that cool
Arch-back strut thing
Mick Jagger does so well.
Unselfconscious, though,
I strut, and purse my lips,
And punch those bunchy troubles
Back and down.

So short a time,but so fine,
All fear was gone.
And with it,
Guilt and hatred,
Sloth and envy far.
So far they had no name.
For a thing not imagined
Cannot be named.

Instead ...I did not see the world
But was in it,
Had eyes to see,
But did not look through them.
There was no space, none!
Between me
And whatever it is that starts
Where my skin quits.

Nothing to have.
Nothing to want.
Nothing to regret.
Just to be.

Instead ...I knew those words,
I knew them not
Like you know Afghanistan:
Someplace over there,
Cold and Hot by turns,
Bomb craters and Islam.
You know it, yes,
But in your head.

Instead ...I knew those words,
I knew them like
You know your backyard:
Blue horizon, hummingbirds,
Bird feeder beat up by the deer,
Quiet, warm and cool by turns.
The place over there
Where we made love one night.
The scar in the apple tree
Where the chair hangs in Summer.
Smell of pine oil, sun on skin.

Oh, so painful brief I knew those words,
Not like Afghanistan, but like backyard.

Freedom, Joy, Life, Love.

I knew them, yes,
Not only in my head,
But in my heart.
For just a few minutes.

For so short a time, but so fine,
There was nothing I couldn't do,
And again nothing I felt I must.

Obstacle was a word without traction,
Depression like Afghanistan.

Do people live like this?
Is this what we were meant to be?
Is this who I really am?
As I write this, I blink away tears,
And I remember the feeling fade.
Oozing up from cracks below,
Coiling oily darkness returns.
But a tiny smile remains.

I'm back, I'm afraid.

Afghanistan (c) Mike Riley 2003

Joy. That's what it is.

Manifest Destiny

2009-08-28T17:53:00.002-06:00

Practically no one would argue with the proposition that our country is in a sorry state right now.

The arguments would begin, of course, once the topic was broached about WHY the country is in such a sorry state. I imagine two camps, one armed, each with a list of what is going wrong and what should be done about it. Take the two lists, retitle the "what's going wrong" part to say "what should be done about it," and vice-versa, and you could give the two lists to the opposite parties with no problems. On so many topics, we have drawn into two ideologically opposing groups of approximately equal size, in a tooth-and-nail confrontation to rehabilitate our ailing nation.

But in spite of the many ways in which we disagree about what has gone wrong, most members of each of these groups would agree that our country is hurting.

Imagine: two centuries ago, there was such a thing as "manifest destiny."

In those days, the people of our country had a vision of the future, and in that future, our country was to be a grander, more prosperous, happier place. The future was a place where those people WANTED TO BE.

Do you long to be in the future of our country, our world?

I virtually never hear politicians, clergy, scientists, engineers, or regular Joes mouth their longing for the future, nor their vision for the future, nor their hopes for the future. Our manifest destiny has evaporated into a manifest apathy.

Or maybe apathy is too kind of a concept for today's attitude about tomorrow. There is too much anger, fear, and loathing of what our future is likely to be for the word "apathy" to adequately describe our feelings. Maybe manifest dread is more like it.

Oh, sure, people make plans and live in hope. Especially politicians, whose stock in trade is the proposition that if they are elected our cherished hopes will be realized, whereas if their opponents are elected, our hopes will yet again be dashed.

Sadly, each of the opponents in any race is half right.

Our talk of a brighter future, our plans, our hopes and our dreams today feature mainly repairs, corrections, fixes, disasters averted, pain ameliorated, suffering lessened. When did you last hear a leader, any leader in any field, describe a future with not only our current problems solved, but with creative new things, new frontiers, new nourishment for the human spirit, new grace?

I do not excuse or exempt myself.

We have become cynical, sarcastic, and defeatist. As you read this, you are thinking to yourself, "yes, but manifest destiny was a jingoistic, rapacious, racist, exploitative, chauvanistic illusion." Aren't you thinking that? Doesn't G.E.'s "Progress is our most important product" slogan sound cloying and even somewhat horrifying now?

Stop for a moment and try to visualize life in these United States in the year 3000. Granted, it's unlikely that the United States as a political entity will still be around by then, but try to imagine what life will be like for your many-great-grandchildren who may be living right there where you are at this moment, whatever the name of their home may be by that time.

Is it a beautiful, utopian world? Is it not only free of the many physical, social and environmental problems of today, but also free of new ones, and ALSO filled with something new, something beautiful, something uplifting and worthwhile?

If not, why not?

Close your eyes, and visualize that world of the year of 3000, the good world, not the post-apocalyptic one we are being sold over and over again in our imaginations by the beneficiaries of fear and the merchants of dread. What does your world look like?

I can see that world quite easily, although I have rarely seen it portrayed or described. Are we supposed to just make it come about by pure blind luck? Is the "invisible hand" really guiding us there, to a world of grace, prosperity and fulfillment? Or have I revealed too much about my vision?

I beg you to consider this. Imagine that good world. Imagine what it is that makes it good, and how that differs from what we have in our world today.

Then forget whether bringing about that world, bringing about those things that make that world a place worth living in, bringing about a place worth leaving to our cherished children and their cherished children and so-forth ... forget whether those changes fit into the mold of your political affiliations and religious beliefs.

Becasue I think we will have to forget those things to bring that world about. And only by US working together will that world come to be ... it will certainly not happen by itself, and I think you'll agree it will not happen if we continue as we are now.

It is only our destiny if we MAKE it manifest.

Why Witches Love Harness Racing

2009-08-28T16:50:00.002-06:00

Sometimes when we're out and around, I get an inspiration for a subject for writing. Sometimes, it is a story idea, sometimes it's a poem (not too much of that recently, unfortunately), but most often, it's an idea for a brief essay like this one right here.

Not being of the current plugged-in generation, I am generally not carrying a computer or i-Phone at these times, so I resort to an old-school solution and borrow a pencil or a pen from Karen and jot down a few words to remind me what the idea was, for when I get home to where my computer is.

What I jot down is sometimes the title, but oftenit's just a few words that will trigger my memory about what it was that I wanted to write about.

The mind wanders; when I get home, things have usually happened between my inspiration and my renewed proximity to my computer, and I forget to even look at my scrap of paper. Therefore, it is often days, weeks or even months later when I finally open my wallet (where I keep the scraps to keep them from being laundered when I abandon them in my pockets and put the clothes in the hamper), and I see the note there and I am reminded to write about whatever it was that I jotted down earlier.

Over-and-above the laundry, this scheme is fraught with troubles.

Part of the problem is that I also use this method to record gift ideas for future birthdays and holidays, as I generally have that "deer in the headlights" reaction when I finally realize that the joyous occassion is rapidly approaching* and I have yet to buy anything. So, if I remember my list of inspirations, I pull it out to see if maybe sometime over the last year I maybe wrote down something to give Karen for her birthday, or to give Morgan for Christmas, or whatever.

I look at the list and I am confronted with the words "Perilous Harmony," for example, and I'm totally bewildered, unable to discern in my dark and creeky memory whether "Perilous Harmony" was an idea for a blog entry or a new perfume.**

Similary, when I sit down to write, and refer to my list for an idea, I will see "Cute Knit Cap," and totally draw a blank about what I had in mind about a cute knit cap that would be interesting to write about.

I'm not stupid, but ... well, maybe I am.

Maybe a longer, more explicit note would be a good idea, huh? Yeah, but when I write these notes, I'm either WITH Karen, so I can't be too obvious writing down some long and explicit note just after we saw a cute knit cap in The Gap. Or maybe I'm driving and listening to something on the radio that inspires some potential future writing, and I scrabble around for a pencil in the glove compartment to write with and the back of a credit-card receipt to write on, and, while trying to avoid hurtling cars in the intersection, I have only seconds to jot down literally a word or two, no matter how obscure.

Another problen with this method is that these notes soon become bedraggled to the point of illegibilty. The paper gets wrinkled, smeared by rubbing against my too-often-used credit cards, sweat-stained (sorry, TMI, I know), or folded and refolded by the vagaries of wallet-bound life. Many such notes have been executed on Post-It-Notes, and in time, the none-too-sticky-anyway adhesive loses its attractiveness, and the note flutters out of my wallet, to be lost to me forever.***

But worst of all is this: I find a fairly recent note in still-legible condition, but I simply have NO IDEA what the hell I was thinking when I wrote it down.

So it is with "Why Witches Love Harness Racing."

This entry appeared on one of my longer and more-productive lists a couple of years ago. For all the memory I have of writing it down, it might as well be a channeling from the beyond. But I suspect that I actually had something in mind, so it's only fair to my former self to give it due consideration. I kept the note for a long time after I had worked off all the other entries, then I actually transcribed "Why Witches Love Harness Racing" to a newer note to give my memory the best possible chance. But, no luck. So, I approach the problem analytically.

A quick check of Google reveals that, incredibly, there is a connection between witches and harness racing. There have been several recent, brilliant harness-racing horses with "witch" in their names: "Son of a Witch," "Witch and Famous," and "Wags to Witches," to mention only three.

But I doubt this is what I had in mind,as it doesn't really explain why witches, or even ONE witch, might LOVE harness racing.

I get a great mental image of a coven gathered at the rail of some toney trotting-horse track, yelling and screaming for their favorite horse-and-jockey (are they still called "jockeys" in harness racing?), with the other patrons giving them wide berth in case they inadvertently cast a spell in their excitement. I sense an episode of a tevee sitcom here, don't you?

So what drew these women here? Why do they love it so? I don't know.

Is it because the little cart in harness racing is called a "sulky," and witches are, well, you know, sulky? Is it because the cart is a sulky and the jockey's clothes are silkie? Is it just the inherently classy atmosphere of harness racing as opposed to plain ol' horse racing? Is it all the flaming accidents that occur between sulkies in these races? (Okay, just kidding about the flames, but there ARE a lot of accidents, and I can see how that might attract witches.) Is it the oddness of harness racing as opposed to plain ol' horse racing? Is it just the grace and pride of the trotters trotting?

A new thought occurs to me. Perhaps I wrote down "Why Witches Love Harness Racing" as a little joke on my future self, just to torment me when I tried, as I am trying now, to figure out what the hell I was thinking.

It's the sort of thing I would do.****

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* Memo for self for future essay: "fast approaching" is a bogus expression, like "eleventh hour."
** Seriously, what IS "Perilous Harmony?"
*** But not to everyone; I sometimes wonder how many husbands I've saved of a Christmas Eve with one of these notes. Or perhaps a desparate feature columnist.
**** If, on the other hand YOU know why witches love harness racing, please drop me a note (but please be less opaque about it, okay?) @: jmyke2000@comcast.net Thanks.

The True Nature of the Numbers One thru Nine

2009-06-30T15:48:00.002-06:00

For the everyday consumption of numbers, such as for balancing your checkbook, estimating the amount you are traveling in excess of the speed limit, or lying about your age or weight, one doesn't easily discern the true nature of the digits themselves. They do their work as symbols, always enslaved to the iron-willed demands of those real-world objects they enumerate (or intentionally obscure).

But in sudokus, the numerals might just as well be letters of the alphabet, alchemical symbols, or colors of the rainbow. In a sudoku, the numerals have no numerical purpose. They are simply place markers, pure symbols, indicating nothing except their difference from one another. As such, their otherwise hidden personalities can emerge, and to the observant and receptive sudokuant, each will have revealed its true nature.

Each of the numbers we use in our decimal system, like each of us, has a unique personality and each presents us with its challenges when it comes to more intensive uses such as computer science, speculations in futures short-sell pork-belly contracts, nuclear physics, and sudokus.

Those of us who practice the arcane and dark art of sudoku tend to be a secretive and studious lot, cowering in the dark, away from the distractions of social entanglements and physical liaisons. Sometimes by choice.

As a result, we spend much more time in the sole company of the numbers 1 thru 9 than the typical modern person. It's not that we shun the zero, you understand; it's just that the conventions of sudoku do not require its use (except for that heresy which is the super-sudoku and which shall not be spoken of here.)

Although every practicing sudokuant will recognize the descriptions offered below as being perhaps obvious, non-solvers may never have experienced the numerals' intrinsic personalities. As far as I know, no one before has recorded these emotional quirks of the numerals for their benefit, so I will endeavor here to do so:

0 As I mentioned above, zeroes are not used in true sudokus. But I assume the zero's personality is as well-rounded and balanced as it appears. But beware, these seemingly harmless digits can catch the unprepared making uncomfortable and incorrect assumptions; I assume the zero is no different, and every bit as devious as the others.

1 One must be understood as pure ego. Used to being first, the one has come to expect priority not as a convention or a privilege, but as its due, its right. Make no mistake, the one is an experienced leader, and can certainly do the job, but never forget that in sudokus, the numbers have no mathmatical values; don't let the one sweet-talk you into starting your slicing-and-dicing with a one every time. I use a strict rotation, yet the one always seems to push its way to the front.

2 Two seems so innocent and unassuming. But when we are not looking, the two is a jezebel, evening up the other digits as if their sudokuic roles were actually mathmatical. The two is unfaithful, duplicitous and corrupting - the exact opposite of its apparent equanimity and fairness. Beware.

3 Three, of course, is the obvious trouble-maker and rabble-rouser of the digits. But this reputation is somewhat undeserved. It is just that the nature of the three is boisterous, jubilant, and full of fun. Those are not qualities often appreciated by the quiet-loving and more sedentary personality of the typical sudokuant, often leading to misunderstandings and paper-shredding erasures.

4 Four has a superior and snooty attitude that makes it both unpleasant to associate with and unpopular with the other numerals. But life is often unfair, and the problem here is that the four is actually a superior number, indeed. Try not to let it know just how good it is, or you will find that the four becomes completely swell-headed and unmanageable. Be especially cautious of the closed-top four; the open-topped four has all the vanity of the breed, but at least is open-minded.

5 Five is the blue-collar-worker of numerals. It is well-centered, untroubled by doubts or distrubing dreams. Five also unfortunately lacks much creativity or passion. It is what it seems: a willing worker and a fair dealer.

6 Six is coy and devious. Beware of entering this number into a box of your sudoku in pen, because it loves to mislead you as a passive-aggressive expression of its inner hostilities. Check it twice; it is no coincidence that it looks like a snake coiled to strike.

7 Seven has a long-standing reputation for mystical and spiritual significance which it finds hard to live up to. In reality, it is just a hard-working, journeyman numeral, much like the five, trying to make its way in the world. The seven must be respected, but like a famous yet lonely super-model, it longs only to be treated as every other number is treated.

8 Eight is the great evader. It may seem friendly and avuncular, but make no mistake, this digit is one of the most truculent when it comes to revealing itself, perhaps the most devious and recalcitrant of them all.

9 Nine, of course is the numeral of death, and it cannot be understood until this is recognized and accounted for. It is neither doom nor glory, it is simply the end of all things. So, approach it warily and with due respect.

No one who often solves sudokus will be surprised by any of the above; if you are one of us, you may even say that what I have written here is so obvious as to be a foolish waste of time. But after having many, many discussions with sudoku outsiders, I know with certainty that most people do not, in fact know about these personality traits of the numerals, and many have wandered all innocent and trusting into a puzzle completely unprepared for the emotions, politics, and intrigue in which they soon are enmeshed.

I hope I have spared at least one of you an unpleasant experience and needless Wite-Out.

Identity Card

2009-05-08T13:48:00.001-06:00

Okay, so I know of a guy who's a collegiate sports official, a recovering alcoholic, a member of the auto club and over fifty years old. His identity card says:

NCAA AA AAA AARP

On Primitive Beliefs and Recylcing

2009-03-30T09:15:00.003-06:00

Setting out our recycling containers makes the wind blow. Hard.

Now I know you are either wondering why I harbor obvious superstition, or more charitably, you wonder what rational process might lead to such a conclusion.

The observational parameters are as follows:

a) Our recycling service gives us three little open bins, sort of like the milk boxes that are used by dairies to deliver gallon jugs of milk to reatailers.

b) Recycle-eligible materials almost by nature seem to be light and fluffy.

c) We live in a narrow valley along the Front Range of the Rockies knonw for the literally hurricane-force winds that blow through from time to time.

d) Our recycling schedule is on Mondays, bi-weekly (an ambiguous term that in this case means once every two weeks), which is about as arbitrary a schedule as far as Nature would be concerned as one could devise.

I have observed, over hundreds of events and dozens of years, that other than the traditional and predictable spring-time dawn and dusk chinooks, year-round and regardless of time of day, setting out our recycling is the ONLY time that these winds erupt spontaneously and destructively.

I flatter myself that I have an especially sharp, agile, and scientific mind, and as an amateur scientist, I am sceptical by nature. Unfortunately, I have not kept notes or done any statistical analysis to prove the truth of my observation that these two seemingly-unrelated occurences are, in fact cause-and-effect.

Nevertheless, I am aware that I might seem to others to be like the primitives who believe that cows standing under a tree make the day very hot. Which is just silly.

I am aware of all the logical fallacies such as confusing cause and affect, attributing cause and effect relationships to chance simultaneous events, just being stupid, and so-on. But on the other hand, if human beings have any evolutionary advantage, it is that we live and learn. And the smart ones only burn their hands at a fire once ... or maybe, if they're scientific, twice.

Yet I dutifully set out my recycling again and again in the vain hope that the wind won't blow this time, only to be forced to get my cardio-vascular exercise for the day by running around our neighborhood like a madman with our "Pik-Stik" gathering it back together.

This has become so common that the neighbors no longer bother to take out their own trash on recycling day ... they just wait for the wind to start and throw it out their doors, knowing that I will dutifully gather it and stuff it into totally non-PC plastic garbage bags for them.

Setting the question of religious beliefs aside for the moment, one might wonder why I don't devise some simple method of securing my recycling aginst the howling might of the moving air. Don't believe for a minute that I haven't tried!

I routinely lash our trash (as opposed to recycling) containers to our mailbox and one another with bungee cords in case the gods of the winds might mistake them for recycling. These containers actually have lids. On those days, I have spent many happy hours wandering the streets nearby to find and retrieve said lids, content in the knowledge that most trash (as opposed to recycling) is nasty, wet and heavy, and if anything like that wants to blow away, Pueblo can have it.

This morning, as Karen and I were taking the recycling out to the curb, I commented that it felt like it was going to snow. I do not exaggerate when I say that IMMEDIATELT AFTER I SPOKE large fluffy flakes started drifting lazily down all around us. Again, I guard against leaping to false conclusions, but I will tell you, we were both impressed. Knowing that that sort of snow is seldom accompanied by high wind, we continued in our task.

As I sat back down to finish my second cup of coffee and peruse the second page of the daily fascist pamphlet they call a newspaper here, I was not at all surprised to hear the familiar sound of trees groaning and shingles striking our siding as a seeming cyclone took form outside.

I just smiled. Nature, devious and sinister at heart, could no longer fool me. I had not been led astray by the deceptive gentleness of the morning's snow. I had been down this road all too often. I had actually put the damn recycling in a regular garbage can and lashed one of the recycling bins to the top to form a lid, then lashed the entire contrivance to our mailbox with bungee cords. My hope is, and here I may be in for an accute disappointment, that the recycling guy will recognize the green bin as more of a token or icon of recycling, and understand that the container below is not actually trash, but potential environmental gold ore.

I would not be surprised to look outsise later only to discover that our mailbox has blown down the street.

Claims to Fame, Dr. Science, and the Daylight Savings Crisis

2009-03-04T11:52:00.002-07:00

Most people have a claim to fame. But, as in many things, I excel in this in that I have several claims to fame.

First and foremost, I bussed the table of the seven original astronauts when they had dinner at the Dublin House the night of the Air Force / Navy football game in the sixties. You may touch me. And as proof, I offer this: they were all pretty small guys.

Second, I served in the Air Force with a guy from New York who stepped on Danny Kaye's foot. Please, no autographs.

Thirdly, and perhaps most important because it reflects on a personal acheivement, I have had a submission answered on air by Dr. Science. My question was: "If werewolves are people who turn into wolves at night, what are warehouses?" His answer was that they were regular houses guarded by werewolves, which is not at all what I had presumed.

I had sent in several other questions, as I am by nature an inquisitive sort. One of my most sincere requests was this: I have participated in Daylight Saving Time for many years. I am approaching retirement, and I would like to know how to make a withdrawal."

As I am now actually retired, and in as much as Dr. Science did not deign to answer my question, I am faced yet again with a conundrum, or perhaps a quandary: Daylight Saving Time is scheduled to start yet again (against my better judgement, I might add) this Sunday morning. I don't know of any mechanism to exempt seniors from making the mandatory contributions to this madness, which I personally consider a sort of tempero-solar ponzi scheme, and, of course, there is no mechanism I know of to withdraw the thousands of hours of perfectly good daylight I have already contributed.

I at least would like to transfer to my daylight saving account the total of all the seconds saved by time-saving appliances and the more efficient routes through traffic advised by the KRDO Traffic Eye In The Sky, which I conservatively calculate as amounting to at least two days.

I had a friend in college who refused to participate in Daylight Saving Time. He refused to turn his clocks forawrd and back each year along with everyone else. During Spring and Summer, he just turned up everywhere an hour earlier than he had been doing. This seemed to me a pretty good solution ... the temporal equivalent of putting your money under your mattress, which recent history has shown can be a particularly astute investment idea.

I never had the guts to bug The System, however, as I was afraid that The Man would come and Take Me Away. So, I apparently have a Time Saving Account, but I seem to have lost my account number and PIN. I understand that this saved time is not actually available, anyway as additional time while I am still using regular time, as explained under IRS Rule A-24/7-365-DTS23/24.oo7. It has been explained to me that the only way I can have any saved-up time while I am still using regular time is by using twice as much at once by taking speed or meth, which I also understand can have severe withdrawal penalties.

But I wouldn't mind the extra sunshine at least, if that might be possible. This has become especially important now that we live part time in the Pacific Northwest.

Thank you for your interest.

Phone Calls From the Crawl Space

2009-02-14T15:46:00.002-07:00

Some friends of our daughter and son-in-law are in the process of buying their first house, and also expecting their first child. They wonder about the new level of responsibility and are maybe worrying about what is to come.

And well they might.

We have recently returned to Colorado to prepare our house here for eventual sale. (I have my doubts about selling it in the market as it is right now, but we will sell it eventually.) Having just gone through this process after inheriting and selling Karen's mother's house last year, we are well aware of all of the things that we will be going through. It's not an easy process.

To start with, there is a list of things that we have lived with in this house that must be corrected or improved for someone else to be interested in buying it. Isn't it odd that we are so forgiving of the flaws in our houses when we live there, but so harsh about judging the condition of a potential new place we might buy? But when you live in a place day after day, little things that aren't perfect and which require some of your precious money or even more precious time to fix somehow just don't seem as urgent as having time with the family or going to a movie.

But they accumulate. And then, when the time comes to sell, you realize that your house reflects all too accurately your internal psychological landscape: it's deeply flawed, messy, and disorganized. You also realize that your house all too accurately presents the real you to the outside world. And you realize that the world will recoil in horror from what they see.

Not the best start for a sales presentation.

If we had set out on a campaign to make all these repairs and corrections to our nice house for ourselves, for our own on-going occupancy, this project might be a source of joy. But doing it now, as an incentive to sell, feels a little like a betrayal of a structure that has been a loyal and well-loved part of our family for over thirty years. Why didn't we take loving care of our sweet little house all these years? I feel like we're putting pancake make-up and lipstick on it and sending it out in the night to find some male companionship.

So we are trudging through our list of items, cross-prioritized by urgency and cost, one at a time. The urgency metric can zoom something which has lain dormant for years right to the top of the list. While we were last away, we loaned our house to my nephew and his family. What we failed to do however, was warn them that they could not use the upstairs shower, because, for the last fifteen years, at least, it has had a leak that satutrates the inside of the plumbing wall and leaks out onto the floor and the ceiling of the bathroom below.

This is the perfect example of an item which we simply ignored while we lived here. We just showered downstairs ... it is a nicer, walk-in shower, and it just didn't seem at all urgent to spend money on the upstairs shower. We always warned our guests to use the shower downstairs, and no-one ever seemed to mind. We just blew it when our nephew's family stayed here by failing to inform them.

Like everything in fixing up houses, it's not so simple as it looks. It's basically a broken control valve or pipe. It might cost maybe $250 for the plumbing repair. Alas, the plumbing is sealed up inside a wall behind a sheet of (now sodden) sheetrock and ceramic wall tiles. Ceramic walls tiles, I might add, that they no longer make.

So what do you do when faced with this repair? Opening the wall and re-closing it adds several hundred dollars to the cost of the plumbing repair. Over and above that, patching the tile will result in the shower looking ... well, looking like it has been patched. Do you replace the entire shower enclosure? That would be the high-prived choice!

So we've bit (bitten?) the bullet and hired our favorite plumber to come and fix this shower, finally. When he looks at it, he remarks that he could do it right now, today (yesterday as I write this), including the wall repair and tile work! About $1000 all together. But I, says he, must go out and try to find a matching wall tile.

"Can't you clean off the old tiles and re-use them?" I ask, trying to appear naive.

"Never works. They'll have paper from the gyp board glued to them, mortar stuck on the side, and I imagine at least one will break trying to get them out of there." I already knew all this from previous do-it-myself tiling projects. I knew he could probably clean the tiles enough to re-use them (if they all survived removal), but I also knew he would spend eight or ten hours doing so, and the cost of the work would then be $4000. I also knew from previous experience that neither my wife nor I was going to volunteer to clean the tiles.

So, we bit the bullet again (new bullet?), and told him to get started, while I drove off to find a tile match. Before I left on my quest, our plumber (Ron) pried one of the tiles off the wall with nothing more exotic than his fingernail as a tool. I stuck my color-match sample in my pocket a set off.

I often think it might be fun to have a map of my travels on any given day. If someone else were to see such a map, they would surely decide the driver of this vehicle is insane. There were figure-eights, loops, spirals, switch-backs, reversals, and all-in-all, it would have looked like my intent was to make a grand tour of the city.

Suffice it to say that I did not find a matching tile. The company that made it has long since gone out of business. Most manufacturers don't even make this size any more ... for some obscure reason, the industry has agreed than 4⅜" tiles are far superior to 4¼" tiles. Something to do with going to metric, I'm betting. But I returned from the war with a half-box of 4¼" tiles that almost match the existing ones, and Ron got the repair done by late afternoon: all new plumbing, new wallboard, new tiles in place, grouted and caulked neat and clean.

The new tile looked like a patch job, but it was neat, and now (at least as soon as all the grout and caulking was dry), the upstairs shower was functional for the first time in nearly two decades. Whoo-hoo!

So we went out for dinner with my sister, came home, watched a Netflix movie, and Karen went to bed. I turned off the tevee, and was using the downstairs bathroom when I became aware of a distrubing sound. Like dripping.

This is the homeowner's least-welcome sound. Nothing can wreck a house as quickly as water. A quarter's worth of water can do thousands of dollars worth of damage to a house, and I do not exaggerate. So, I looked at the new plumbing upstairs and saw no drips, and I listened there carefully, but I heard no sound. I looked at the plumbing downstairs, and saw no drips, but there surely was a sound - a drip, and a fast one, too.

The downstairs plumbing is visible partly from the crawl-space, so I ventured down there to see what I could see. Now I must tell you that I venture into the crawl-space only if required. I'm not as young as I used to be, and I didn't like all the squatting, crawling, dust, rocks, bugs, cobwebs, and miscellaneous hostile sheet-metal pairing and screws even then.

But I was able to make my way around the garbage bags full of Christmas decorations, around the furnace, over the left-over wood from when they built our house in 1967, over the dust bunnies of dryer lint and squirreled-away spare funace-fan pulley belts, to the corner where the plumbing was visible. And the leak was visible. There was lots of water in there, and more was coming! It was by now almost midnight, and the water had apparently been coming ever since late in the afternoon when the plumber turned the water back on after his work.

Here I would like to pause to mention "Mike's Rule of Auto Repair." It is as follows:

We think we hire people to fix our car, whereas

They think we hire them to work on our car.

This is a crucial difference.

Well, Mike's Rule of Auto Repair applies to plumbing, too. Ron the Plumber is a great guy, and very conscientious. But a couple of times, there have been little "whoops-es" with his work.

I turned off the water to the house, and opened a valve to relieve the pressure from the system to see if I could get the leak to stop. For some reason, the water just never seemed to stop coming. Where was all this water coming from? I checked the main water entry valve, and it was tightly closed, but still water ran from the faucet and the dreadful drip continued.

I eventually realized that both hot- and cold-water valves were open, and I was effectively siphoning all the water out of the water heater. So, I shut that other valve, and turned off the water heater, thinking that I was probably now cooking about a pint of water in there.

I had to wake Karen up to tell her not to bother to flush if she used the toilet in the night, and I called Ron the Plumber to leave him a message that we had sprung a leak and to call me first thing in the morning, which was this morning.

Unfortunately, first thing in this morning was Satruday, and also Valentine's Day. Which is partly why I called him at midnight-thirty. I had a vision of him and his wife leaving for a romantic weekend get-away while Karen and I were stuck here, high-and-dry, so to speak.

So, by nine o'clock, Ron had called and was on his way over. ("This never happens to me!" Ron insisted.) He made the repair, which was apparently a leak in one of the joints he had made to install the new shower valve, patched the wall (again), and turned the water back on. Everything seemed ship-shape, but I scrabbled back down under the house to look one last time, just to be sure.

As I sat there in the dirt and dust, shining my flashlight up onto the plumbing where the previous night, I had found the leak, everything looked good. Not quite dried out yet, but no actual visibly flowing water, and no new sprays or drips that I could see or hear. When all of a sudden, a I felt a drip on my shoulder.

I had my cell phone with me. I'm actually not a big cell-phone fan. but here was a time where mine paid for itself. I called my own house. I could hear the phone ringing in the kitchen, only a few feet over my head, but a painful and filthy trek through the crawl-space then the basement to travel. "Karen, tell Ron not to leave yet. There's also a leak in the hose bibb."

The ground where I was sitting was saturated; the hose bibb there had apparently been slowly leaking for a long time, and it was just a coincidence that I was sitting under it when one of the occasional drips chose to fall. And that there was a plumber in the house at the time.

So now, all of our plumbing is in good shape.

Seems to be in good shape.

Maybe.

For now.

I know nothing lasts. I just want this stuff to hold together long enough to sell the house to some other home-moaner.

Who To Root For

2009-01-10T20:45:00.002-07:00

Many have asked, "Which team should I root for in the ___ game this weekend?"

This question is not as shallow as it may seem. Enjoyment of sports-based entertainment is actually excellent training for development of consumer preferences and helps hone goal-setting skills for life's more serious ambitions, if any. So, I offer here my handy-dandy guide to who to root for in this perpetual season of televised professional and collegiate sports (in descending priority):

Root FOR ...

● Your favorite team (natch). If not playing ...
● The team from your home town or birthplace or previous place of residence, or a place you've visited, or a place you'd maybe LIKE to visit. If no such team playing ...
● The western-most team. If neither team is noticeably more western ...
● The team with the coolest logo.
● The northern-most team.
● The oldest team, but team-age only counts at their current franchise/school location.
● The team with the longest losing tradition (yay Cubs!).
● The underdog (natch).

In some cases, it may be more important to root AGAINST a certain team, or the list above may be insufficient to identify a team to root for. In that case:

Root AGAINST ...

● Any team with a monotonous, mind-numbing fan-chant such as the tomahawk chop, boomer-sooner, etc.
● Any team with a really obnoxious or totally obscure mascot or nickname like the Redskins or Hoyas. ("Hoya" apparently means "what?")
● Any team which, if you delete black and white from their logo has more than one color left.
● Any team owned by Al Davis.
● Any team from Florida.
● Any team employing Chipper Jones.
● Any team from a school that pretentiously insists on including the "the" before the school name, such as "The Ohio State University," unless the "the" is especially helpful in distinguishing that school from another school with a very similar name, such as "Ohio State University" in the example.
● Any team with an obnoxiously-long history of winning, especially if this is due to big money. By big money, I mean, of course, bigger money than the usual ridiculous amounts. This factor is void if any of this money is coming your way, of course.

You can see that these rules are time-tested and completely free of personal prejudice or simmering resentments, except for the Chipper Jones thing. I hate that guy.

Footprint

2009-01-03T12:49:00.001-07:00

Dear Dora,

I been reading so much about conscientious people trying to reduce their footprints; this has raised my awareness to the point where I simply feel I had to try to do something!

My primary resolution for the year 2009 is to reduce my footprint substantially. While I am considering several approaches to this problem, as a stop-gap measure, I have resorted to walking everywhere on the outside edges of my feet. This has the dual benefit of lessening the abrasion of our Mother Earth while at the same time evening out the wear-and-tear on the soles of my sneakers, as normally I pronate ferociously.

One plan I have come up with is to hop everywhere. I am not sure this would produce the desired result, however. While superficially it might seem that it would cut the number of impacts in half, my own trials reveal that the length of my hops is actually only equal to (or even a little less than) my normal stride, so there is actually no net reduction in the footfall quotient. Furthermore, each footprint is heavier, as my entire body mass is airborne during the hop. This analysis also seems to rule out pogo sticks and unicycles.

Another possible approach is historically based. My grandmother and great aunt had toes removed from their feet as a form of cosmetic surgery to enable them to wear the narrow shoes so fashionable in their youth. I have considered this, but I am concerned because I seem to remember that they had balance and foot health problems as a result of their toe removals. I don't want to imply that I'm unwilling to make personal sacrifices for the benefit of the environment, but I don't want to do anything rash and irreversible, only to discover later that it was incapacitating and maybe even ineffective.

I have given a lot of thought to high heels. There can be no doubt that they reduce one's footprint, but they also make a powerful fashion and lifestyle statement that I'm not sure I'm comfortable with right now. I can accept a certain amount of sarcastic comments and even teasing, but I'm a little afraid that even in these enlightened times, the others guys at the construction sites where I work might go too far and actually physically assault me.

Dora, do you have any insights into reducing my footprints?

Sasquatch

------------------------------

Dear Sasquatch,

I am afraid that you are laboring under a misapprehension.

The issue is not to reduce one's footprint, but one's CARBON footprint. I gather from your letter that you generally wear sneakers; unless you wear coal-soled shoes or "diamonds in the soles of your shoes" ala Paul Simon, you're good.

Dora

Antenna Guilt

2009-01-03T12:19:00.001-07:00

Dear Dora,

I recently had my car washed after all the winter weather, what with the dirt and road salts and what not. I try to be a responsible steward of my earthly possessions, so, as usual, I removed the screw-in radio antenna from the car before sending it through the maze of swirling brushes, gale-force winds and hurricane-like sprays that constitute our local automatic car wash. As I was later screwing the antenna back in (and in the process getting my hands VERY DIRTY) I realized with horror, that over the life of our car, I HAVE NEVER WASHED THE RADIO ANTENNA!

Besides my concern over whether I have inadvertently shortened the service life of the antenna, I feel so guilty. The poor little antenna has served us faithfully for years, never complaining, always working in its quiet and unobtrusive way, yet I have been so callous and unfeeling about its needs.

I took the antenna upstairs and lovingly washed it in a kitchen sink full of warm, soapy water, then dried it with soft toweling and my blow-dryer. I re-installed it, and it seems to work fine. My question is, how can I move beyond my deep feelings of guilt and anxiety for ignoring the feelings and needs of my car's radio antenna for so long?

Over Wrought
---------------------------------------------------
Dear Over Wrought,

I have several observations about your insights into your cavalier treatment of your car's radio antenna:

1) Perhaps you are transferring feelings to your relationship with your antenna from your treatment of your husband, or even his treatment of you? Perhaps a mutual bath in a warm, soapy tub followed by soft towels is in order?

2) Don't dwell on this or you will soon find yourself bringing literally tons of auto parts which have not been washed up to your apartment for the soapy bath treatment. Try not to think about your lack of attention to your headliner, your tailpipes, your gaskets, your McPherson struts, or your fuel injectors. You can take solace in the firm knowledge that many of these parts would not really benefit from a soak in the tub; most were born and raised to thrive in the rough-and-tumble world hanging from the undercarriage, inches above the macadam blurring by below, and would sneer at any kind of bath that didn't include grit and road salts.

3) Perhaps, like me, you're becoming an Animist. Several years ago, like you, I was overcome by anxiety about my treatment of some of my "inanimate" life companions. In my case, it was my socks. I dreamt one night that all my clothes had eyes, but when I pulled my socks and underwear out of my dresser drawers, they blinked and squinted because they were so unused to the bright lights of the world. When I awoke I realized that socks and underwear were people, too, and should be treated with respect and dignity. I set my underwear free, and have gone commando ever since, but I pledged to dry my newly-washed socks on the handlebars of my bicycle as I ride to work each day so that they have a chance to see first-hand the beauty and the pain of the world before they are sent back to their dark and fetid work places in my shoes. I feel this campaign has been a compete success, as I have had no complaints from the socks, no more bad dreams, and I find that other bikers now give me
a clear path everywhere I go.

I hope this has helped.

Dora

2008-12-30T09:49:00.003-07:00

As the offical start of winter and a whole new year approach, I again draw out my crystal ball and stare in the teeth (not a mixed metaphor ... my crystal ball has teeth) of our collective doom for predictions about the year to come:

* The force of gravity will increase yet again, further accelerating the downward trend of nearly everything.

* The magnetic North Pole will migrate slightly, finally coming to rest in a location below Passaic NJ early in 2010.

* General Motors will use its share of the federal bail-out money to grub-stake a new line of electric cars utilizing extremely long extension cords. With predictable results.

* Serta and Simmons mattress companies will have banner years subsequent to new ad campaigns featuring their products as superior investment opportunities, illustrated by charts showing the superior results of stuffing ones money in one of their mattresses to stocks, bonds, money markets, or just about anything else. "Put your money in your Simmons and sleep more soundly!"

* Senior officials of the Gambino, Bonano, Sanchez, Goldberg, and O'Leary crime families car-pool to Washington (in an American-made black limosine!) to plead for financial help in these troubled times. "We know all youse guys; trust us, you don't want us to fail!"

* By consensus it is agreed that we will quit saying "two-thousand-and-eight" or "two-thousand-and nine" and so-on for the year, and beginning with "twenty-ten" will use the format used throughout the late twentieth century, as God intended.

* By mid-March the price of gasoline will bottom out at 139¢ per gallon (regular unleaded) before shooting back up to $5.769 by early September, then dropping again to $1.729 by the end of the year. Major oil company executives will patiently explain, yet again, to the unenlightened that these fluctuations are the result of "supply and demand," but will seem to be stifling laughs while doing so.

* It will be revealed that most Americans were unaware that $1.729 is basically $1.73, not actually $1.72. When so informed, the majority will report feeling "cruelly manipulated."

* As with coffee, rice, chocolate, honey, gasoline, and Cabbage Patch Kids in former years, major media will report on / create a world-wide shortage of cinnamon in 2009. This will be followed by panic buying, hoarding, block-long lines of desparate Cinnabun-franchise managers camped out at empty cinnamon-warehousing facilities, and touching photo essays of teary, sunken-eyed young mothers with their toddlers pushing shopping carts laden with multiple 50-pound bags of cinnamon in anticipation of rationing.

* In February, the latest financial "fraud and failure" story will focus on state lotteries nationwide, which, as a result of investing their proceeds entirely in sub-prime mortgage planches, will be unable to fulfill their obligations to those who chose long-term payouts over smaller instant cash awards. Sneering spendthrift grasshoppers will be shown taunting the supposedly prudent ants by saying "suckas!"

* The FDA will be "embroiled" in a scandal and officials will be "grilled" about problems with sub-prime beef. Viewers across the country will fire-bomb TV stations after the umpteenth repetition of these lame puns.

* A religious sect will be exposed for bilking millions of devout followers out of literally billions of dollars worldwide, and using the proceeds to acquire and stockpile rare artwork, fancy real estate, and a sumptuous life style for their elderly leader, who will be shown to have a number of villas in Italy, expensive clothing, a private jet and custom-fabricated automobiles while deluded believers often scrimp on necessities and forego even food for their numerous children to make their contributions.

* America's economy will be revived and its environment will be restored to health by the successful implementation of a federally-funded nation-wide public-works project to dig up and landscape the interstate highway system.

* Men's fashion trend-setters will soon be wearing stilletto-heeled shoes, sold under the name "bayonet-heeled shoes."

* The cellular concept will be adapted to other uses. Car makers will save money in the manufacture of each car by eliminating the horn, and providing instead a small sending unit in the hub of the steering wheel which will activate cellular horns mounted on posts alongside the roadways. Churches will be shuttered, replaced as worshippers simply use convenient cellular prayer wheels in their homes and cars. Some will resist the idea of cellular sex, in which any convenient person of the opposite sex may be substituted when away from home.

* In 2009, America follows the usual trend from Spartan discipline in January to Dionysian excess in December, with the single anomaly that in April virtually every taxpayer pays their taxes with checks drawn on failed banks, with the notation "you guys figure it out!"

I am confident these predictions will be as accurate as any I have ever made.

Englishampoo as a Second Language

2008-12-21T13:04:00.006-07:00

One of the fun parts of taking a shower is reading the shampoo and conditioner bottles.

These people use English words in a whole new, creative way. One of the concepts shampoo science has focused on apparently is filling empty hair. Every hair-care product promises "fuller hair."

I remember seeing heads with really full hair in the 1960's:

This style, which I admit to actually trying out myself briefly, seemed to fall into disfavor for many years, although it now seems to be making something of a comeback. I would describe this as "a head of full hair," but I somehow doubt that this is really what the shampoo cartels are promising us.

Possibly, they intend to provide "a head full of hair?" No, that can't be right ... I've had that feeling, too:

Surely, this isn't what shampoo makers intend to bring us?

Maybe it's a "full head of hair?:

I'm sure this is a ready market, but I don't really imagine many would expect a mere shampoo to accomplish such miracles (I'm assuming the bigger picture is the "after" ... if not, my apologies.)

I understand that polar bears' coats are made up of hollow tubes of clear protein that effectively serve as light guides to conduct sunlight from the outside world down to the bears' skin. Technically, this would qualify as "hollow hair," not empty hair, so that can't be the target customer.

The shampoo bottle gives us a clue when it portrays the condition it is intended to rectify as a guide to which of the bewildering variety of shampoos one should buy. Mine says it is intended for those with "fine or flat" hair. I had flat hair, too, when I was a pre-teen. It was even called a "flat-top!" But I really doubt a mere shampoo would have de-flattened it.

Karen's shampoo says it provides "fullness" and also "volume," which is apparently a different quality, for those with "flat or oily" hair. Now we're getting somewhere. Oily I understand. So, "full" hair is apparently "unoily!" Which is to say ... clean. What a concept!

My shampoo had another excellent quality:

"The right tool to clean and condition - for less than more expensive brands!"

Imagine that! It cleans my hair at a cost which is less than shampoos which cost more! Wow!

Well, I'm fresh out of exclamation points right now, but trust me, the shampoo labels aren't, so, I'll be back with more, later.

Great Educational News!

2008-11-30T12:49:00.001-07:00

A new study shows:

_Sixty-four percent of students cheated on a test in the past year and 38
percent did so two or more times, up from 60 percent and 35 percent in a 2006
survey.

Clearly, success in school is becoming very important to our kids!

_Thirty-six percent said they used the Internet to plagiarize an assignment, up
from 33 percent in 2004.

Kids are also becoming more computer-savvy!

_Forty-two percent said they sometimes lie to save money 49 percent of the
boys and 36 percent of the girls.

See, kids today are thrifty, too!

_93 percent of the students said they were satisfied with their personal ethics
and character, and 77 percent affirmed that "when it comes to doing what is
right, I am better than most people I know."

After all, why be "good" when you can be "better?!"

Convinced this is all somehow a problem, one school administrator says: "We need
to create classrooms where learning takes on more importance than having the
right answer."

Thanksgiving

2008-11-26T23:01:00.003-07:00

Thanksgiving is at once my favorite holiday and very tough to write or talk about.

I love Thanksgiving because it is one of the few holidays that seems pure and generally unaffected by the terrible engines of politics, religion, and commerce. It stands weirdly perched there on a Thursday afternoon in the clunky end part of Fall, after the pretty part with all the colors but before the pretty part with the snow.

There are no obligatory presents or cards or decorations, although there there are plenty of all of those if you want them.

Is it really Thanksgiving without a picture of a turkey drawn by a child by tracing around his hand and fingers? Sure, but I still love the idea of little kids getting the joy of dicovering the turkey hiding at the end of their arms and imaginations.

Is it really Thanksgiving without a big turkey and triptophanic lethargy and football and too much pie? Sure, but I just love the idea of a holiday whose main activity is getting together to eat something good.

I really like the idea of a day set aside for being thankful. Is it possible to be thankful without being religious? Sure, I suppose, but I'm not the one to say: I believe in God. I don't think God has given us the bounty. I think God IS the bounty. I'm not grateful to God ... I'm grateful FOR God.

But any expression of thanks on this day can only cast a shadow of how I really feel. I often don't feel good about life, but never because I'm ungrateful. I know what we've been given; it's my use of it that I doubt. My delight in the world and wonder in it is an everyday thing, and the list of gifts received and appreciated would literally be endless. And, to that extent, I guess, meaningless to anyone else but me. But on this day, I like to bask in it, to look around at the nice wall-to-wall carpet, stars receding into the light-years, excellent rain, and the occasional bubble, and not really try to enumerate it or think about it too much, but just BASK in the joy and privelege of it all.

So, in direct contradiction to the above, here's a very partial list of the things I'm thankful for today (well, tomorrow, and truthfully, every day), not in the order of my gratitude, but merely in the order I thought of them:

Karen
Morgan, Ben, Theo, Aaron
Thanksgiving Day 1967
My fabulous sisters
Color
Perspective
Harmony
Salt
Scratching itches
Reading and writing
The modern American grocery store
The profligate products of quantum physics
My Mom and Dad
Crickets and frogs
Sneezing, both therapeutic and recreational
My interesting (!) extended family ... nieces, nephews, in-laws, etc.
Memories
Forgetfullness
Imagination
Olives
Classical Greece
Water
Time
Sleep
Contrast
Surprise
Language
Crying sometimes
Hope

Having made it to here and now.

Depression Bums Me Out

2008-11-21T22:21:00.002-07:00

Of the maybe four people who will ever read this blog, I doubt any will be surprised to read that I have suffered from "clinical" depression for decades. I came out of the closet a long time ago on this issue (by which I mean to say explicitly that there ARE a variety of issues about which I have not come out of the closet (which is patently untrue; actually I am about as uninteresting as one can be and still be alive)).

That may not seem like a big deal today. It's probably impossible to convey to younger people the stigma that attached in the "good old days" to a variety of personal traits and behaviors that today might be considered only mildly interesting, if that. "He's divorced" was a whispered rumor ... divorce just wasn't done. Well, it was done, actually, but it was thought of as aberrant, and evidence of some kind of failure of character; you know, staying together with someone who is abusive or who detests you was thought of as virtuous ... actually much of life was like that, then. Jobs, religion, patriotism, politics, marriage ... all of these were thought of as one-way commitments to be made in innocence and then suffered through.

Acceptance of homosexuality is still new enough (and far enough from being universal) that the idea that even a hint, in the old days, of homosexual behavior in one's past might be enough to scuttle all chances for promotion, or a mortgage, or participation in a church congregation, or even merest courtesy, is maybe not so much of a stretch.

Depression, too, has very recently been a cause for discrimination, to the extent that anyone with ambitions who was depressed would seek therapy only in exchange for sacrificing his career hopes.

How recently? Recently enough that in 1972 Thomas Eagleton was forced to remove himself from consideration as the vice-presidential nominee of the Democratic Party because of exposure of treatments he had received years earlier for depression.

Not long after that, I finally resigned myself to getting professional help. I had realized for many years that I routinely suffered from depression, but frankly, I was afraid to seek help first because I doubted that it would help, and second I suspected that doing so could imperil my professional life.

But things had reached the point where I knew that I was actually in jeopardy in two ways. First, I was actually frequently suicidal, and second, my behavior when in a depression was damaging my relationships, both personal and professional, more than the anticipated consequences of seeking help might do.

As I have discussed pretty openly with anyone who is interested, seeking help literally changed my life. I don't know if it saved my life ... which is to say that I doubt I have a strong enough will to have actually committed suicide ... but it undoubtledly changed my life for the better. The difference was seen and commented upon by family, friends, and co-corkers. I only regret that I waited so long to pursue it.

One of the things I learned by undergoing therapy is that modern psychotherapy is often strongly rooted in anti-depressant medication, as well as the counseling which constitutes much of the popular image of this therapy. It is helpful for one's self-image to learn that "clinical" depression (that is, recurring or chronic depression as opposed to "circumstantial" depression which is the type of depression that results from depressing life circumstances such as the death of a loved one, and is actually a sign of a healthy mind, although still meritting professional help if it is severe enough to interfere with one's normal life) is often, even usually caused by chemical imbalances in one's brain.

For some reason, bad chemicals inside my head are easier to live with emotionally than bad attitude. It's nice to think that you're not just a whiny weakling, but actually sick. Yay! I'm sick!

I know Tom Cruise and his Thetan buddies think all of this is bogus, but you know what? It works. I have had a nice life since I started treatments. Hell, I have had a life. Screw Tom Cruise.

But properly professional psychotherapy does not live by drugs alone. The therapeutic drug regimen is always (should always be) accompanied by a routine of professional counseling ... you know, 50-minute visits with a bearded older guy in which you lie on a couch and talk smack about your mother while he doodles ideas for his new hot tub gazebo on his legal pad.

So, for over thirty years, I have spend quality time with that older bearded guy. Except, of course, it's not at all like the popular image of therapy sessions.

Actually, my doctor completely fits the typical Hollywood image of a psychotherapist: he's an older, bearded, slightly overweight, slightly greying man, with a swivel chair and a legal pad. Coincidentally, so am I. Hmmm.

As I recall, although both had beards when I started seeing him, I don't think either of us had any grey in our beards or head hair. My doctor had maybe five years on me. After thiry plus years, we both have grey hair, and he still has maybe five years on me.

I can't recall ever lying down during a session, although my doctor does have a sofa long enough to accomodate that if necessary. I have probably mentioned my mother from time to time, and my dad, too, but only rarely, in passing while discussing something else. Really, I have nothing to hide about my feelings about my parents ... like everyone, I have always wanted to kill my mother and ravish my father ... oh wait ... reverse that. Oops, talk about your Freudian slip!

What we talk about mostly is nothing much. I always try to keep track of when and why (if the "why" is discernible) I get depressed. I try to take my medications rigorously, and to be aware of how I am feeling vis-a-vis side effects. As an example, I have been doing this so long that the pharamacology has changed substantially ... the medications I started with caused me dizziness and dry mouth. But still, I took them gratefully because they were very effective in stopping the deep plunges I had experienced prior to starting therapy. More recently, I have been using more modern medications with very few side effects. (Other than their cost, which can be substantial.)

I have learned also that getting depressed about work, politics, money, marital issues, self-image, and so-on, is not "clinical" depression, but the "circumstantial" variety. It's okay, even appropriate to get bummed out about stuff like that, and the medication should not mask such feelings, or it is not the right prescription for you.

But underlying "clinical" depression can escalate such normally-depressing life events into debilitating disasters while depriving you of the ability to cope with them at any level.

Even worse, "clinical" depression occurs when there is nothing apparent in one's life at the time to trigger it. I recognized this in myself when I was in early puberty. I had written (and hidden in my desk at home) a letter of despair to myself. I was startled when, while hiding it, I discovered that I had hidden and forgotten a very similar letter exactly one month prior. I knw then that I was not just unhappy about things that were happening to me, but sick in some way.

I also knew puberty is not really a rational experience, and not, hopefully, representative of what one's life will be like on the long term. So I waited to see if I would grow out of this, and while waiting, I tried to tough it out through bouts of depression so severe that I would frequently stay home from school to avoid having my friends and teachers see me cry for no reason.

But puberty passed, and these feelings did not. That's when I knew I needed help.

As a young adult, I was smart, well-educated, physically okay otherwise, married to a wonderful woman, father of a dleightful little girl. I had opportunity, ambition, and enthusiasms. And yet ....

It was, in fact, the realization that I had all of this, this life that ninety percent or more of the people who were alive in the world, who were ever alive in the world, would be delirious to have, and yet, I was depressed, it was this itself that was depressing. I felt undeserving. I was and am undeserving of such a good life. And I get depressed about being depressed when I am so blessed.

Is that wacky or what?

So that's what I have talked about with my therapist for thirty years.

I suffer from grace.

Grace is the receipt of undeserved good. Anyone can dispense it, but it always shows the hand of God.

So for hours on end, my thrapist and I have discussed grace, and Grace, and why I struggle so to accept it and enjoy it a thrive on its fruits and thereby come to deserve it.

Which is impossible, of course, because grace, and especially Grace, is by definition undeserved good. And God knows, I don't deserve the good life I've lived.

I'm grateful. Beyond grateful. I am overwhelmed by the bounty, and I just feel guilty basking in the good fortune that placed me in this time and place, with these loving people. And it terribly, existentially depressing to feel depressed while endowed with these gifts.

My depression is under control, I'm no danger to myself, but I don't fool myself into thinking that I am "cured." I know from my ongoing ruminations about grace and Grace (they are the same, these two) that I will never be cured. I will die with thanks and guilt about my fortunate life together on my lips.

Surfeit of Grace
© Mike Riley 2002

Grace is not something you have,
But something you are given.
By its nature, grace is unbidden.
By its nature, grace is undeserved.

Grace: undeserved good fortune.
So grace can be measured
Not only in terms of the gift,
But by the nature of the recipient.

A gracious gift
Received by the ungrateful
Is all the more gracious
For that.

A gracious gift
Received by the unworthy
Is all the more precious
For that.

I look about, and see plenty.
I look about, and see friends.
I look about and see good fortune,
And I am humbled.

I am weary of the burden
Of Grace.

I am weary of being undeserving.
I am weary of being unworthy.
I am weary of being ungrateful.
And the gifts are the more gracious for that.

I would give the gifts to others:
I would give the gifts to the more deserving;
I would give the gifts to the more appreciative;
I would give the gifts to the more needy.

So I am not as gracious as my benefactor,
Who dispenses grace without regard.

So I am an ingrate to the gracious.
So I am a victim of plenty.
Punished by guilt
For the gifts I did not seek.

I turn and look back,
And I see a road of toil,
And little to show.
I turn and look back,
And see a landscape of plenty,
Not of my making.

My place.
My heart.
My good fortune.
Given, not earned.

I stand in shame among plunder.

Veterans' Day

2008-11-11T20:36:00.002-07:00

As we were riding in the car today, and as someone on NPR was saying something about remembering to thank our veterans for their service, Karen gently put her hand on my thigh and quietly said "thank you!"

It's weird. I certainly don't think of myself as a veteran. And when I do think of the time I was in the Air Force during the Viet Nam war, I know Karen's sacrifice was at least as great as mine.

I always feel awkward about it, and I don't know why. I guess, for one thing, I can't truly say I am a Viet Nam vet, because I was never sent to Viet Nam. Thank God! I went straight from basic training to duty at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona (you may not realize it, but you know this place ... it's that other-worldly-looking desert base where they store all the old airplanes ... it's shown in movies all the time). Karen, God love her, was in tow; we spent the next four years (less a couple of months for good behavior) right there.

Too bad "they" never indicated that that would be the case, though; in the service, one doesn't (or didn't, at any rate, who knows what it's like these days) know what the next day will bring: new assignments, new duties, new humiliations. Rumors ran wild, and I often figured I was due to "rotate" to S.E. Asia, or later, to the Middle East. But, it was not to be, and I was okay with being snug there in Tucson, working off my obligation under the roar of the F-4's and the scorching heat of the sun. Because a) it was a dry heat, and b) nobody was shooting at me. Yay!

Because I had already completed my architectural education, I was directly assigned to a task which made good use of my college education ... lettering charts and graphs. Later, though, I was able to finagle a re-assignment to work as an apprentice architect for one of the civil-service architects on the base. This was good experience for me, fresh out of school, and counted as part of my required three years of practical experience necessary for professional registration, so no complaints there.

Well, except for this:

From time to time, we would be called out to the base in the middle of the night. There, we would stand alongside a C-130 (the big, ugly propellor-driven cargo planes still in wide use), our packed duffle bags and survey instruments on the pavement beside us, ready to climb on board and ship out to God-knows-where if ordered. After an hour or so of hurrying up to wait, we would be sent home again. This must have happened twenty or thirty times during my hitch, and just to keep things interesting for everybody, occasionally one of the squadrons of airmen like myself would, in fact, get on board their plane and be whisked off to some exotic vacation spot like Lebanon, Israel, Laos, or Iran (this was the former, strong-ally, westernized Iran from that sci-fi time before Islam was a dirty word).

But never me. Yay!

So, eventually we left Tucson. I had been offered the same job I had been doing, but as a civilian, and one can only imagine the vigor with which I declined. We enjoyed Arizona and came to love the Sonora desert in which it is situated. I learned to sweat without worrying about it. And we came away with a beautiful new daughter, Morgan, so it wasn't a total loss.

Military service is not an experience I would recommend to anyone, much less a friend, even service as benign as my own. Frankly, my service in the Air Force was only a sneaky way of avoiding the draft. But I think our country would be a better place if everyone were required to do a year or two of national service. I learned a LOT about my country and my fellow citizens during that four years.

I wouldn't trade that for anything.

I wouldn't do it again on a bet.

Colorado Amendment 48

2008-11-02T22:43:00.002-07:00

One of the issues on the Colorado ballot Tuesday is Amendment 48, which, if approved, would designate that a person's a person, no matter how small, or, specifically, as of the moment of conception.

I have difficulty with this on many grounds, including all the unimportant ones like getting government the hell out of our bedrooms and allowing women to control their own bodies, but mainly, because I don't think it goes far enough. I'd like to propose that the law be changed to bestow personhood on an individual two hours before conception.

This would finally give guys a legal footing to insist on sex, since refusal by a woman would be the moral equivalent of murder. Of course, on the other hand, the guy would have to be willing to be responsible for a pregnancy and to be responsible for the parenthood of his child. What a concept.

What do you think?

--------------------------------------------------

Post-election post-script.

Amendment 48 failed by a substantial margin - nearly three-to-one statewide, two-to-one even in ultra-conservative El Paso County where it was thought up. Yay!

News From Tualatin

2008-11-01T00:57:00.001-06:00

News From Tualatin

It was a SCARY night here in Oregon! See the horrifying pictures here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/de_los_viejos/sets/72157608549546122/

Hopefully, everything will look better by the light of day tomorrow!

New pix of Morgan and "the Boys"

2008-10-19T13:32:00.001-06:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/de_los_viejos/

Cone Zones and Float Time at DIA

2008-10-17T00:02:00.004-06:00

A great deal of time has passed in which I have been growing older. A symbol of this that might give you some indication of exactly how much time is the following (fogey alert!): when I was just starting to drive, and when there was street-repair work being done, the areas under construction were not marked by orange plastic cones (this was well before Dustin Hoffman learned the word "plastic") and pre-fab sawhorses with flashing lights powered by battery packs. They were marked by sandbags topped with what appeared to be anarchist bombs ... bowling-ball sized spherical objects filled with kerosene and topped by a flaming wick, specifically designed to give off as much smoke as possible in the daytime and as much light as possible at night.

Imagine! How totally un-PC such a device must seem to modern eyes! It was wasteful of petroleum, a dangerous potential source of brush fires, an egregious air polluter (and water polluter if it should rain), and an attractive nuisance to teen-aged miscreants. This last I can attest to from direct experience.

But what interests me about the change in road-hazard safety notification devices is not their form, but their location, i.e., near the work! In the olden days (see, I warned you!), the warning markers for road crews working were placed alongside the location where they were working! What a concept.

As an example, and I am totally not making this up, say a crew of several men (and, by the way, the work crew would have been composed exclusively of men in those days) were replacing a length of deteriorated curb along a length of a fairly major neighborhood street ... a street with maybe two lanes in each direction, and with houses on each side fronted by lawns, a sidewalk, and that usually-weedy strip of wasteland next to the curb sarcastically called a "plantspace." They would erect their sand-bag barriers in about the middle of the lane adjacent to the curb, for the width of the working area, plus maybe twenty feet either way along the street. Within this "safe" area everyone would be actually working on the project, except when leaning on their shovel telling dirty jokes or perhaps taking a break. When the concrete mixer came, one of the guys working there would drop his shovel, and step out to direct traffic so that the truck could back into the work area and dump his load of mud, then the "flagman" would go back to work.

No, seriously.

Today, we all know how this work area would appear. There would still be about six guys (oh, yes, all still guys) working on the project, but there would also be two women stationed a block in either direction from the work site each with a day-glo vest, filter cigarettes, a reversible "stop/caution" sign on a stick, and a walkie-talkie. The purpose of these women is two-fold: first, to better balance the gender distribution of road-work crews, and second, to direct traffic three lanes over into the far-curb lane of the on-coming traffic (or in the case of the on-coming direction, to narrow the two lanes of on-coming traffic down to one lane), and to stop traffic in alternating directions in order to fit four busy lanes of traffic into one. This new arrangement is necessary because the "cone zone" for such a project will now extend not to the middle of the lane adjacent to the work, but a little bit into the lane adjacent to the curb on the opposite side of the street!

I want to make myself absolutely clear on this. In spite of what I have said above, I do not object to hiring women to fill the lucrative jobs as flaggers for construction crews, although I do wonder whether it really has bettered the lot of women to be hired to stand around in the rain as the only unprotected living fixed object in the midst of traffic on busy streets, chain smoking, while the men they are protecting are slinking behind several layers of barriers (flashing lights, sawhorses, piles of dirt and rubble, jersey barriers, and all their corporate and personal pickup trucks parked in the work zone), merely because the owners of the construction companies know in their heart of hearts that women are simply not physically capable of heavy work like leaning on a shovel.

No, my objection is to the inflation in the size of cone zones. It has become absurd.

I know this is driven by concern for the safety of the construction workers. By OSHA regulations, corporate liability lawyers, loss-control consultants from insurance companies, and union-stipulated labor-contract provisions. And I also know that it really easy to whine when I have never had to try to do hard manual labor (I could actually stop right there) while standing inches away from hurtling tons of iron piloted by possibly-inebriated teenagers.

But still.

Doesn't anyone notice the mayhem that results from the prolonged and ridiculously-enlarged diversion of traffic for these little projects? Has anybody studied the fender-benders, hospitalized flattened flaggers, lost time, and subsequent post-office shootings resulting from frustrated drivers stopped for the third week in a row to get past a minor sidewalk repair?

Not to mention, even if there is no law, shouldn't these work crews be morally bound to remove their f***ing "Road Work Ahead - Merge Right" signs when they're not actually working there any more ... like nights (meaning after 3:00 p.m.) and weekends?

Not that I'm critical.

Well.

Compare doing what you have to to prevent being impaled on the front bumper of a careening SUV to simply being late for a plane, and what do you find?

You find Karen and me, oddly enough, sitting in the lounge of gate B16 of Denver International Airport (which everybody calls DIA except the FAA and the airlines, who call it DEN) more than three hours before our flight is scheduled to leave.

We want to be sure to get at the airport at least two hours earlier than our scheduled departure, as advised by the Homeland Security Administration, because, after all the threat level is ORANGE!, the next-to-the-highest threat level, and we should all be really scared and willing to submit ourselves to prolonged and intrusive personal search requiring public removal of various items of clothing and seizure of liquid cosmetics, even though this threat level has been hovering at ORANGE! for several years, during which the scariest thing at most airports has been the rise in price at the gas stations near the rental car returns. Move those cones one lane over!

And who knows how long it's gonna take to check in, what with reduced staffing by the airlines? Move those cones!

And who knows how long it's gonna take to check in that rental car? Move the cones over another half a lane.

And what if there's a line at the gas station? Move the cones over. And hire flaggers!

And what if there's a traffic jamb between our house and the airport? Move those cones a big lane plus a center turn aisle.

And what if we oversleep? Move the cones over, and while you're at it, move 'em a block or so away in each direction!

So here we are for hours on end, not comfortably early, exactly, but safely early. We are safely sitting in the lounge out on concourse B, safely watching the other passengers doing sudokus, eating Quiznos and drinking safe, vendor-enriching, HSA-approved bottled water for hours on end because none of that stuff happened.

But it might have.

We in our country have emasculated ourselves.

Now, breathe from the diagram ...

2008-10-14T19:06:00.001-06:00

http://www.slate.com/id/2201158/

The Geology of the Garden of the Gods

2008-10-08T13:59:00.001-06:00

The Geology of the Garden of the Gods

We have lived in Colorado (Colorado is a Spanish word, often translated as "red colored," when, in fact , it just means "colored," or, in more p.c. (personal computer) terms, "of color") for many years, very near a city park named "Garden of the Gods" (our little town is also home of Focus on the Family, who have maybe-not-so-tongue-in-cheekedly suggested the name of this park be changed to "The Garden of God," which makes me wonder if there isn't an even better name for the park out there somewhere.)

I took a long walk there today, and noticed, not for the first time, that although the most obvious features of the park are huge sandstone rocks (as coincidence would have it, red in color), most of the little stones lying along the trails are quartz and granite. Now, as you will remember from Junior High School Earth Science class (for the younger of you, Junior High was kinda like Middle School, only lots more bells), sandstone is classified as a "sedentary" rock, meaning that it was formed by just lying around on the sea bottom several years ago. Granite and quartz, on the other hand are "ingenious" rocks, formed in the fiery bowels. Of the earth, that is. If formed in one's own fiery bowels, they would be "kidne y stones." (The Gardenia of the Gods has no "metaphorical" rocks, which are rocks which have undergone a sex-change operation. There are a great many of these to the west of here in the Fluorescent Fossil Beds, which suggests that "metaphorical" rocks are probably close in nature to "sedentary" ones.)

Now, I often have wondered how so many ingenious rocks got scattered in on top what is basically a sedentary formation. As it turns out, if I remember my Earth Science lessons correctly, after the pre-historic effluvium piled up on the ancient ocean floor, compressing the sentiments below it for dozens of years, it became so squished that it turned into stone. At some point, the fiery bowels of the earth had had enough and eruptured into a catachismic upheaval which tipped the sedentary stones up on end, drained the sea away toward Mexico, raised everything up about a mile and half, and resulted in the Garçòn of the Gods.

Oh, yeah, and also the Rocky Mountains.

The South Will Rise Again

2008-10-04T16:41:00.003-06:00

1864 Confederate States of America Map

2008 Election Map

"Blue States" USA 2008

Gov't of Civil Rights for All

Powerful Nat'l. Governement

Wealth Primary from Science/Industry

Life Guided by Educ./Enlightenment

"Blue States" USA 1864

Gov't of Civil Rights for All

Powerful Nat'l. Goverment

Wealth Primary from Science/Industry

Life Guided by Educ./Enlightenment

"Red States" USA 2008

Civil Rights for Individuals to Secure

Pro States Rights vs Federal Gov't

Wealth primarily from Agriculture

Life Guided by Bible

"Grey States" CSA 1864

Civil Rights for White Males

Pro States Rights vs Federal Gov't

Wealth Primarily from Agriculture

Life Guided by Bible

Did you really think this was over?

2008-10-01T16:13:00.008-06:00

The Lighter Side of Hank

“Okay, here’s a good one …”

“Guess the number I’m thinking
between 1 & 10!”

“Okay, okay, let’s see …
multiply that number by
one hundred million …”

“No, wait, is that right?
Multiply it by
one hundred trillion …”

“Oh, jeez, that’s not it, either!
Multiply your number by
One hundred billion …”

“You’ll notice I have
nothing up my sleeve …”

“So you can trust me,
just send me that
amount to buy up bad
old mortgages!

Good one, huh?”

And so it goes ...

2008-09-28T18:01:00.001-06:00

As you may imagine, current circumstances have put me in mind of past discussions of economics and politics. I ran across this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/opinion/28sun1.html?partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss

Well, yes, it is people who have failed. This was the entire knock on communism as it played itself out; the notion of "to each according to his need, from each accoding to his ability" sounds great theoretically, but people are well-known to be selfish and lazy. So in a real economy, real people gamed that system to drive the most goods towards themselves with the least effort on their own part. That wasn't part of the system's design; it was a flaw in the system's conception.

This is also just what I've always believed about capitalism and the free market (as I've remarked often and at volume). These may be great ideas in the abstract, but people are no damn good, and without accounting for that, the system has the same fatal flaw that communism had. (Some) real people will cheat, lie, bribe, intimidate, steal, collude, and conspire to direct the maximum money, influence, and power possible into their own pockets at the expense of others. In my (admittedly socialist) view, that is the role of government: to protect the average citizen from unprincipled thugs and villians, whether that be foreign hostiles, internal criminals, scoff-laws, or financial scoundrels.

Yes, of course, they will also attempt to contort the government to their own ends as well as everything else they touch, but it is only government in which the average working guy has a chance to assemble a credible force to advocate for his interests against the powerful and well-connected. The collection of taxes is the only way for people of modest means to accumulate enough resources to battle the well-financed and bad-intentioned.

Whether in the employment situation or "the market" (or government itself,) it is not the philosophical design of the system which hurts us, but the fact of bad acts by bad actors. In my opinion, it is simply an unacceptable design of a proper social order to allow our nation to careen down the road from one disaster to another while a system supposedly purified by de-regulated makes its adjustments at the expense of innocent and powerless people just trying to get by.

Some of us will always be without the years and wherewithal on tap to wait for the eventual recovery or "market adjustements", if any. Interestingly, Ron Paul had a column on the subject in the local paper here (which embraces a libertarian view) that the fault has been, of course, NOT ENOUGH deregulation. I like the simplicity of the idea: Let's just do away with laws and enforcement mechanisms against fraud and theft, and just set our valuables out on the curb each night ... it'll all work out.

Ironically, since our family has been in a position to save rather than spend much of what we earned (i.e. since daughter graduated college), our conservative and "diversified" portfolios of invetments have had really crappy returns, through good times and bad. They did okay during the Clinton years, returning enough to beat inflation by a little, but otherwise, our even-more-conservative CD's and insured passbook savings have beat them consistently. This past year or two is something new, though, with wholesale losses of 10%, 20%, 30%. It is not particularly comforting to a retired person to hear economists and investment gurus explain that eventually the markets will adjust - in five to ten years.

I don't know whether the bailout is a good idea or not. But, like military service, agree with it or no, I know we'll pay the price for it. I just visualize the hours I spent working alone in our architectural office, in some cases right through the next work day, which generated that lost money, and realize that in a very real way, I would have been better off at home with my family. The working classes of our generation who have tried to be responsible financially have been raped.

And I don't think it's over.

Not that I'm bitter.

The Surge

2008-09-25T20:11:00.001-06:00

To the Editor, The Gazette:

Sir,

Through unchallenged repetition, it is becoming the general view that "the surge" in the Iraq war has succeeded.

The implication is that those of us who oppose this war do so because we thought the United States might lose, and have therefore been shown to be in error about our position opposing the surge and the war itself. This was never true.

My opposition to this war has nothing to do with whether we could "win" it or not. Of course the USA has superior military strength compared to Iraq, which can only be considered an impoverished third-world state.

We cannot "win" an unprovoked attack on another nation. The world is full of nations ruled by despots; we have not previously felt obliged to invade them for that reason alone. Our policy in the past has been to support internal forces of democracy and oppose such states on every front diplomatically, economically, and politically; we have rightly struck without mercy if we or our allies were attacked. For this reason, I supported the first Gulf War.

We have abandoned that honorable policy, which George H.W. Bush followed in the first Gulf War, with a new policy of unprovoked, pre-emptive war. The damage to Iraq and its citizenry has been appalling, but of far more concern to me is the damage to our own nation's honor, character, and self-respect.

In hopes of heading off the inevitable claim that I do not support the troops, I feel our military has done a superb job, fulfilling their only obligation, which is to execute our nation's civilian leaders' orders completely and professionally. I am myself a veteran of the Viet Nam war; I volunteered and served with honor in spite of my personal feelings about that conflict. It is our leadership's ill-conceived adventurism to which I object.

No military success brought about by the "surge" can redeem the immoral impulse of our unprovoked invasion of Iraq.

J. Michael Riley
1136 Chambers Dr.
Colorado Springs CO 80904
jmyke2000@comcast.net
719-632-9853

Charming news ... not

2008-09-11T17:34:00.001-06:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/opinion/11thu1.html?partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss

Take a minute and read this from "Snopes," the urban legend verifier / denier ...

2008-09-05T16:07:00.001-06:00

Here's a more complete and verified CV of Sarah Palin, our next president, maybe:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/kilkenny.asp

Domestic Oil Production

2008-08-14T19:39:00.001-06:00

To the Editor, the Gazette:

An interesting article in the Seattle Times last April (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002245699_export17m.html)

noted that legislation aimed at opening the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR) contained no provision that any such oil would in fact be limited to sale in the United States. Although the article doesn't mention them, the same is true of proposed off-shore sources. So citing new drilling as a "way out" of our dependence on foreign oil is a complete red herring.

Originally, the North Shore Alaska oil was legally limited to domestic refineries, in response to the similar situation existing when that source was new and we were subject to the Arab oil embargo. Later, as the embrago was lifted, under the guiding hand of Alaskan Sen. Ted Stevens, the ban on exporting this oil was reversed, to permit the more profitable sale of this crude in Asia.

As of today, most Alaskan oil is refined in California. But California refineries actually have lower capacities now than they did when the Alaska pipeline was new, and are operating at or near capacity. Any new sources released by off-shore drilling or opening ANWR could not be added to the supply stategically supporting America, because in spite of record profits oil companies have not increased refinery capacities in the U.S.

If new sources are limited to U.S. consumption, there is nothing to stop oil companies from simply diverting current U.S. sources now being refined in California to the orient to make way for the new-souce oils, increasing our strategic situation not one whit.

I know that oil is "frangible" ... that is, it's one big market, regardless of where it's pumped out of the ground and refined. And, of course, I support the most efficient allocation of this resource by the forces of the market in order to keep the price of finished consumer products as low as possible.

But the repeated mantra that off-shore and ANWR drilling is a means of solving our domestic strategic dependency on "foreign" oil and/or as a means of controlling soaring prices is ridiculous; the total contribution of these new sources would at best be only a fraction of a percent of total world-wide production, which is the only metric which counts.

Unless our government is willing to force construction of new domestic refineries immediately, and unless legislation permitting drilling off-shore and in ANWR forces such production by law to go to those new refineries for domestic use only (both of which would probably be an economic disaster), these new sources will go to Asia to be refined and used.

J. Michael Riley

1136 Chambers Dr.

Colorado Springs CO 80904

jmyke2000@comcast.net

719-632-9853

Moby Dick - Not the Car

2008-08-14T15:44:00.001-06:00

Chagrined, I searched through my well-thumbed copy of Melville's masterwork for evidence that your literary educator friend might find credible, and present herewith the following photocopies (see attachment in PDF format.)

I make no accusations nor do I draw conclusions, but I do have some observations:

a) The chapter title is "A Squeeze of the Hand." This might seem an emotionally innocent title to you, but I suggest consulting with any of your male relatives, especially any of them who have spent any long periods of time at sea or otherwise alone or in the exclusive company of other men.

b) I direct your attention to the third paragraph on page 532, which begins "Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze!" and only comment to the extent that you must never overlook that the substance at issue here is sperm.

c) The paragraph noted above ends on page 533 as follows:

"... nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness."

d) The next paragraph, should you have missed his point entirely, goes on:

"Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm forever!" and goes on to note his preference for sperm-squeezing with his pals on the Pequod to "the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the fire-side, the country;" and would happily instead squeeze out that sperm "eternally." I know that whaling certainly has this effect on me, and in your interviews, you may find similar sentiments.

Lest you think all of this is my own perverted projection onto poor Herman's almanac, which itself is pure, and free of all reference to sex except for the unfortunate and otherwise meaningless coincidence of the word "sperm" in two very disparate circumstances (notwithstanding that the prolonged and finally fatal pusuit of a large, white, sperm-shaped devil is the very substance of the book) let me refer you again to the central incident in Chapter LXXVII, The Great Heidelburgh Tun, and the subsequent chapter, Cistern and Buckets, in which the Pequod's Indian harpoonsman is tasked with climbing atop the inverted head of a slain sperm whale lashed to the side of the ship, prying open the brain case wherein the sperm oil is to be found, and dipping it out with buckets into the rendering cauldrons, described as follows:

(Seeking to maximize the retrieval of sperm from the head of the whale...):

"Tashtego has to ram his long pole harder and harder, and deeper and deeper into the Tun, until some twenty feet of pole have gone down."

(Tashtego, the Indian whaler, inadverently falls into the Tun, the whale's voluminous reservoir of sperm oil, and may drown, a circumstance compounded by the coincidental tearing loose of the whale's head from its moorings to the side of the Pequod, and plunging to the bottom of the sea. Queequeg, with whom Ishmael slept in the opening chapter of the book, dives to his rescue...):

"... a loud splash indicated that my brave Queequeg had dived to the rescue ... Now, how had this noble rescue been accomplished? Why, diving after the slowly descending [whale's] head, Queequeg with his keen sword had made side lunges near its bottom, so as to scuttle a large hole there; then, dropping his sword, had thrust his long arm far inwards and upwards, and so hauled out our poor Tash by the head. He averred, that upon first thrusting in for him, a leg was presented; but well knowing that that was not as it ought to be, and might occasion great trouble;- he had thrust back the leg, and by a dexterous heave and toss, had wrought a somerset upon the Indian; so that with the next trial, he came forth in the good old way - head foremost. As for the great head itself, that was doing as well as could be expected." [i.e., the whale's head continued to sink.]

Does this sound somewhat like the emergency recourse of a midwife to a breach birth? A helpless one bathed in sperm being brought out into the world by a skilled practitioner. No, no, just my imagination again. But read on:

"And thus, through the courage and great skill in obstetrics of Queequeg, the deliverance, or rather, delivery of Tashtego, was successfully accomplished ..."

"Midwifery should be taught in the same course with fencing and boxing, riding and rowing."

Not to stretch a point too much, but the next paragraph begins:

"I know this queer adventure of the Gay-Header's will be sure to seem incredible..." which probably is just a coincidence of meaning-drift of the words "gay" and "queer" in the century-and-one-half since the book was written, but the rest, I think, stands the test of time and Melville's intent. He was writing a homo-erotic adventure here.

One last observation. The chapter titles in between "The Great Heidelburgh Tun" and "A Squeeze of the Hand" include The Nut, The Pequod Meets The Virgin, Pitchpoling, The Fountain, The Tail, Schools and Schoolmasters, Fast Fish and Loose Fish, Heads or Tails, and disgustingly and all too graphically, if you're inclined to see things my way, The Pequod Meets The Rose Bud.

I rest my case.

p.s. I was at first inclined to play off of your story about Robert and Conor and say "I could go all day," but considered the subject and demurred.

Is environmentalism Marxist?

2008-08-11T20:25:00.004-06:00

Here's a kinda interesting article from Slate concening the environmental consequences of Netflix:

http://www.slate.com/id/2196651/

Here is what I think may be a bit hyperventilated reaction to said article:

Economics is more important than environmentalism.
by Ralph7 08/11/2008, 8:09 PM #

Because I am rational, I agree with the scientific consensus on human caused global warming. I support evolution as a proven fact (DNA replication with gene mutation), and agree that Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection is the best explanation for speciation. I accept replicable research on gravity and relativity as factual science. In fact, I accept all modern science, until a paradigm shift proves a concept false. Likewise, I accept the scientific consensus on economics, and that free market capitalism is superior to socialism. .

Economics is more important than environmentalism: We contend that the threat of socialism has the potential to murder far many more humans than global warming. We maintain that socialism has already murdered hundreds of millions of people; and more socialism will directly murder millions of more people, where as the threat from global warming is far less consequential.

We reject any Government oversight that restricts the free market for environmental purposes. There is no evidence that we Westerners can stop developing nations (China, India, Brazil and etc.) from using fossil fuels, so Western effort (which hinders economic growth) will be fruitless at best, but most likely destructive.

From a personal perspective, Earth is around 4.5 billion years old. Many times throughout our planet’s history the Earth has been warmer. Geologic research shows global warming increases biodiversity (There is some definitive research that shows that warming increases marsupial biodiversity in the relatively closed environment of Australia.). Additionally, during the Quaternary, the Earth has been unusually cool, and we are living in an unusually cool era near the end of the ice age, so warmer planet is the Earth's norm. Animal/plant population shift from the Equator to the poles will not be catastrophic. Also, Global Warming may increase precipitation in the southern hemisphere thereby increasing rainforest density (see NASA research). Further, CO2 is a natural gas and not a pollutant that is required for plant life, which may increase due to increased rainfall.

Therefore, we consider the global warming’s Armageddon projections to be fear mongering with a hidden agenda to spread Marxism. Though you will argue that we a loosing both, we choose humanity over the penguin or any animal that dresses too formally.

Is it possible to discuss these things with a measure of calm while keeping one's eye on the doughnut rather than becoming obsessed about the hole? I hope so. Here is my measured, and I hope, calm and reasonable, reply to Ralph7:

Re: Economics is more important than environmentalism.
by jmyke 08/11/2008, 10:05 PM

Ralph7 ... I'm sorry, I don't know who that is, but apparently, somewhere between the first paragraph and the rest of this excellent comment, Ralph7 revealed himself to be a member of the royal family through use of the royal "we." "We" who?

Much of what you have said I would agree with, but please don't presume to express yourself as representing some amorphous "we," unless you state the millions, thousands, hundreds, or maybe even one other person whose opinions you are voicing.

"We" know no such thing as that alarm about global warming is masking an agenda for the advance of Marxism. I haven't a Marxist bone in my body, but I certainly have some alarm. Being a rational person, as you say you are, I feel reasonable actions by reasonable people can ameliorate these effects or even neutralize them.

Economics versus environment is a false choice. We are stewards of our environment, not its totalitarian dictators. The environment has no regard for our welfare, one way or the other. The environments of the planets Mercury, Venus, and Mars are blithely unaffected by man, therefore environmentally pure, in a sense "green." But nons of them is a really great place for human beings to live, work, or earn a profit. I think it's in our interest to steer the environment of this planet in a human-friendly direction, if possible.

If we want the Earth to continue to offer us the stage on which to play out our lives, loves, and ambitions, we must be attentive to keeping it an amicable place for our species. This is not Marxism; it is common sense. Hostility toward our own environment is not a choice in preference of economy. It is a preference for ignoring our responsibilities, our self-interest, and our patrimony.

Characterizing resonable efforts to sustain a liveable environment as Marxist seems much more alarmist to me than simply trying to our best.

Oh, and by the way, here's Ralph7's measured, calm, and reasonable response to my comment:

The fact that you fail to acknowledge that the environmental movement is laced with Marxism makes you either too dogmatic or too irrational to debate. Rational people cannot debate intellectually dishonest ideologues.

Is there an intellectually honest enviro out there?

And one more word from me to whoever Ralph7 are:

Re: Economics is more important than environmentalism.by jmyke 08/11/2008, 10:37 PM

I did not, and do not speak for any sort of "movement," just myself. I'm a retired businessman, capitalist, and employer with some environmental concerns. Who are you, that you may speak as "we?" You seem very excitable.

Distlefink

2008-07-25T17:51:00.000-06:00

This one is similar in form to the one my Dad painted on our house in Cripple Creek in the fifties:

... but the colors were more like this one:

... and with details and fru-fru adornments like this one:

The painting was probably eight or ten feet tall all together (bird plus perch plus heart ... no circle.) There were also several hex signs:

over the windows and doors. I think the old German Amish and Mennonite Pennsylvania farmers thought these signs gave some kind of protection to the occupants if each wall opening was "hexed," kind of like the south-western Indian custom of paiting blue all around your windows and doors because evil spirits won't cross water, and will be fooled by the blue into thinking there's a river around all your house's openings.

Plus, it looks cool.

My folks knew all the lore about what the details of the hex signs supposedly meant in terms of protecting you ... how many legs on the "flower", what colors, all the little adornments, etc. I do not.

Amazingly accurate prediction from "The Onion"

2008-07-19T20:11:00.001-06:00

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28784?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

"We Can Drill Our Way Out"

2008-07-16T13:49:00.000-06:00

Editor, the Gazette:

Re your "Our View" Column today, Wednesday, July 16^th entitled "We Can Drill Our Way Out":

You notice "That's because gas prices are subject to speculation and futures markets. With a promise of increased future supplies, resulting from American drilling, markets would quickly discount oil prices in response to less activity from futures buyers. History tells us this is true."

In this regard, we are all speculators. The current backlog of orders for Toyota's Prius and sales lots overflowing with big SUV's and pickup trucks is the same "futures" psychology being exercised by the driving consumer. No one would make as big a purchase as a vehicle based solely on today's cost of fuel; the market reflects buyers' belief that these prices have become the new norm, or worse, the new price floor.

The American public is speculating with their checkbooks that fuel costs will remain high, and the market is responding sales of fuel sipping compacts are soaring while sales of SUV's are "in the tank."

But, just like the "futures" speculators in your article, the motoring public will revert to previous high-consumption habits as soon as ( if!) prices decline, which, according to your article, will occur virtually as soon as new drilling begins.

So, whatever market-based cure for our crippling dependency on oil is underway due to the current (and anticipated) high costs of fuel will be undercut by increased domestic drilling. It will stifle the economic incentives for General Motors and others to make the expensive shift of their production lines away from truck and SUV production to competitive fuel-efficient cars. It will discourage the recent trend of American families to drive less and use public transportation more.

Speculation at the car lot, like speculation by oil futures investors, will subvert any long-term gain on the oft-stated goal of reducing our dependence on foreign oil. And, even if the Gazette wishes it were not so, it will subvert this chance to begin to repair the immense damage our oil dependence has made to our environment.

Our national experience during and subsequent to the oil embargos of 1967 and 1973 followed precisely this pattern. We then squandered our opportunities to consolidate our gains, resulting in the mess we are in today. "History tells us this is true."

J. Michael Riley

jmyke2000@comcast.net

1136 Chambers Dr.

Colorado Springs CO 80904

719-632-9853

Real, True, Actual Headlines

2008-07-07T14:07:00.001-06:00

Real, True, Actual Headlines

... and the snarky comments they engender

comcast.net

Woman: Buy My House and Marry Me!

I'm not clear on this:

is the house so bad she has to offer herself as an incentive,

or is she so bad that she has to throw in a house to seal the deal?

Nev. Brothels Offering Gas Cards

Now we know the price of gas is screwed up.

In Entertainment: Kidman Gives Birth

No, really, that's what it says. I did not watch this video!

Yahoo! News

Obama to accept nomination at football stadium

... and kick off his campaign, no doubt.

More sex means less chance of ED for older men

So let me get this straight: not gettin' any when you're young,

but hey, hope springs eternal even if nothing else does?

Kidman gives birth Monday to a girl named Sunday

Kinda like getting a running back to be named later.

ABC News

Jalapenos, Cilantros Eyed As Salmonella Suspects

Undocumented vegetables to be deported.

What Your Car Trunk Says About You

If your car's trunk is talking, maybe that last "hit" wasn't completely successful?

CNN

South Carolina plans license plate for Christians

Good, it's about time we found some way to control these people.

BBC

Iraqi police discover Uday's cars

Ever prompt and competent PD also reports sightings of foreigners.

Porn appears on rugby programme

No problems, but just imagine the reaction if rugby had intruded into a porn programme!

washingtonpost.com

Saving Michael Vick's Dogs

Issue them So. Carolina license plates.

Mind Boggle

2008-06-25T09:27:00.001-06:00

This is the insignia of the new Opel ... er ... Insignia. their next model will be named the Opel "Chromed Metal Letters."

Some Lady In Malaysia Sewed My Undies

2008-06-22T10:59:00.002-06:00

I worry about what I worry about. This may(!) indicate a mental problem of some kind, but at least it keeps me entertained.

I worry that somewhere in Malaysia is a tiny woman who has sewn up my pajamas. It could be a man or even a little kid, I guess, but the worry is still there. The nature of the worry is this: my jammies consist of a blue tee-shirt and shorts, the shorts in navy blue with a repeating pattern of cute little white polar bears ... what must she think?

Oh, I know she is probably thinking mostly "Wow, it's really hot in here!" or "How am I gonna feed my family on what they pay in this dump?" or "I'm here all day every day, when am I going to get to the market?"

But at least occasionally, as she is dragging another half-yard (or the metric equivalent, which I think is a macro-coulomb) of cute-polar-bear fabric across her tiny work space, she must think "What kind of childish giant wears XXL polar-bear jammies? We have made forty thousand pair of these just today! Could these possibly be the same people who are ravishing our Islamic brothers in Iraq?"
Or, I worry about the Chinese masses, gathered to tip back a few cold ones of whatever it is Chinese masses tip back at the end of their work days, chatting together about their work:

"Today, I made one hundred thousand 1½"-long toy cars for the Americans. They are lime-green metallic raodsters with huge chrome engines, day-glo orange windshields, and flame jobs! If this is the kind of cars the Americans are grooming their youth to lust after, we will surely soon crush them!"
"Yes, surely! I myself just yesterday lifted with my mammoth dock-side crane forty cargo containers, each with ten thousand plastic pill boxes within! Each pill box had separate compartments for each day of the week! Not only that, but for every day, there was a separate compartment for morning and evening pills! Each compartment was easily large enough to contain a dozen or more pills! These Americans must be teetering on the brink of physical collapse!"

"Or perhaps their recreational drug habits are much worse even than we have been told! Ha-ha!"

I also have a pair of jeans that has sewn into a seam a label reading "Made in Bangladesh" and then just below that, "Hecho en Bangladesh." This blows my mind. I picture a tiny Bangladeshi woman (here, my cultural literacy fails me, and I substitute an Indian woman ... the same woman, by the way who also works in Malaysia), who sees this label and must wonder. Bangladesh was previously part of Pakistan, which was previously part of India, which was previously part of the British Empire, so I figure this little lady can read English. But does she read Spanish? Even if not, she can surely figure out that the two phrases say the same thing, but she must wonder. Okay, maybe just the first time ... the novelty probably wears off after the six or seven thousandth pair of jeans you throw together.

My own take on this label is that some cocaine-addled executive, high in his office in the headquarters tower of the multi-national Arizona Jeans Company (ext. 1988) in suburban Teaneck, missed the board meeting where it was decided that the Mexican workers were sucking away too much of their bonus money when the Banglasdeshis were willing (and happy to have the opportunity ... we're doing them a favor!) to work for half the amount. Or maybe, he hasn't visited much of the ole USofA recently, but according to his reading on the net, it's for all intents and purposes a fully bi-lingual country now, so just roll with it.

I worry that while it is true that George Bush has squandered any good will that the people of the world may have momentarily felt towards us after the events of 911, the rest of us, K-Mart shoppers, are also doing everything we can to give the world a bad impression with WTMI - way too much information.

(Go visit The Riley Family Website - http://jmyke2000.googlepages.com/home)

I Hate to Drive!

2008-06-13T15:29:00.002-06:00

I love to drive. Really; it's a pleasure to work the controls of the car, to feel the dynamics of accelerations, braking, cornering, to hear the motor working. I like maneuvering in traffic, being the "adult" in traffic situations, being a safe driver.

But as I've recently had quite a bit of time behind the wheel, I can see that most people do not like to drive. On the evidence of their behavior, they hate driving. People buy cars that can adhere to the road in corners under high lateral forces, then slow to a virtual stop before turning a corner. Why? What are they afraid of? Surely they are not afraid of the possibility of a collision as a result of turning the corner? If that were the case, you'd think they might actually LOOK WHERE THEY'RE GOING first. And, of course, they exhibit no fear at all of being hit from behind by all those cars bearing down on them from the straight-away they were previously on before they stopped in their lane to make a simple turn.

This is especially true if the turn requires going over a curb cut ... heaven forbid that their car's suspension should have to accomodate a bump at over .5 miles per hour! they might actually feel a sense of motion through the car's steering or suspension! Oh, no!

Turn, people! Move that wheel, cover the brake, let the car do what it was designed to do!

Similarly, people seem to have no compunctions about pulling out of a parking lot or side street into on-coming traffic without accelerating to match the speed of the traffic on that street or highway! What the heck! Why spend any money on the larger engine or the turbo when other peoples' cars have perfectly good brakes and tires. One might hope!

And when merging onto the freeway, for God's sake, don't accelerate! Just let those speeding semis and school buses full of children plow into your trunk. That'll acclerate you plenty!

On the other hand, if you're on the freeway, and you can see a busy merging on-ramp coming up ahead, don't bother to change lanes to the left to make it easier and safer for people trying to get on the highway! Let them worry about you. And if there's a bloody, metal-tearing, head-smashing, flaming-tanker-truck accident because you're too lazy to change lanes, hey, it's not your fault!

Accelerate! Turn! Brake!! Move that car like it was intended to be moved ... around obstacles, over bumps, past fixed objects. Learn to like the feel of movement and the responsiveness of your car. It'll make you a better driver, and a happier one, too.

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I Hate to Drive!