I Might Be Wrong

I would never die for my beliefs 
because I might be wrong. -- Bertrand Russell

There is a difference between coming to the conclusion that you are wrong and conceding that "the other" is right. I have postulated recently that in a war both sides are dying for their beliefs. Often neither side is completely right nor wholly wrong. No, you do not get to cite the Nazis.

About the only belief I would be willing to risk my life for would be the belief that everyone is entitled to their own beliefs. To live by those beliefs and practice whatever lifestyle those beliefs require. Of course the rub is that an overwhelming number of "big beliefs" rest on the premise that other people with other beliefs are wrong, evil, infidels, in need of saving or killing. Clearly not new news to any of my readers. So, let me ask - Any beliefs you might have recently considered letting go of?

I believe a regular review and purging of beliefs is a healthful thing. It helps if you start small, here are a few of my tiny beliefs. By mine I mean either I am willing to let them go or I fervently wish others around me would.

--NPR is valuable, productive, worthwhile and therefore deserving of public funding;
--Congress is ineffective and should all be voted out of office, except our local guy because he has seniority and has done so much for the local economy;
--adults have the right to do certain things, have certain habits, enjoy certain pleasures; even though by allowing them to do so will mean that children might have access to these same activities;
--animal testing is evil and cruel but it saves human lives;

Got any you want to toss on the bonfire? Bring your own kerosene.

Security & Stuff

Edward Lemay, assistant professor of psychology at the University of New Hampshire and his colleagues found that people who had heightened feelings of interpersonal security — a sense of being loved and accepted by others — placed a lower monetary value on their possessions than people who did not.

I am becoming more and more anti-stuff. I have always been anti-shopping but some of that is simply not liking the process of looking, finding, sometimes trying on and then purchasing, followed by being told I could have gotten it cheaper, larger, greener or with more power. Anti-stuff is both anti-consumerism and anti-clutter. I find the weight of ownership to be a burden. The process also requires that I labor to produce capital to expend on the objects I find objectionable. Seems like an obvious wicked circle, Dante comes to mind.


On the other hand, I don't find that being loved or accepted has much to do with my meager ways. I just don't like stuff. In fact, often upon entering into a loving, accepting relationship the event is inaugurated with a flurry of accumulation. New furniture, new clothes, new this, new that. OK some of the this and thats are fun, you know one of those things with the whatchamacallit and the thingamabob attachment. But other than that - no more stuff!


The Lemay study actually asked people to put a monetary value on their possessions. So it really isn't that being accepted and loved will make you purchase and consume less, but rather that you value the stuff at a lower price point. Hoarders, in particular, value their piles of items as much as five times more than those who are secure, loved and accepted.


However, if love and acceptance makes anyone less attached to their possessions dollar-wise or otherwise and if being less attached means accumulating fewer things - well then I am all for it! I love you, I accept you. Let's celebrate by not going to the mall.
--
Art: the BuyMoreMandala made of plastic shopping bags

Silly Bigotries

Church leaders [in the 1780s] saw theaters as competition with the kind of indoctrination they provided. Laws were passed in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island banning the performance of plays. Preachers spoke of theaters as 'the Devil's Synagogues,' places where fabricated human emotions were on display. The contempt continued into the nineteenth century, a time in which many religious leaders forbade dancing in public. Acting was considered an even viler form of expression, one step down from public drunkenness. - Finding Oz by Evan I. Schwartz

We read those words today and think how pedestrian, how silly, how deluded were those ancestors of ours. Banning theater seems so ridiculous as we think back from our place in the 21st century. Yet while plays were being banned as works of satan, there was also slavery; women couldn't vote - well you know the list.

Fast forward to the 60's and coalesce the civil rights movement, the women's rights movement and the anti-war vietnam protests. One might have thought that the baby boomer generation would have swept away all forms of prejudice as they aged through the society and took control of the means of production and the direction of zeitgeist. But no, it has been left to the children and grandchildren of the boomers to put down prejudice against homosexuals, hispanics and political independents. As the boomers die off, so too will those lingering pockets of prejudice and injustice.

But before the Gen. X and Gen. Y members get too smug, I have to wonder what lingering anthropocentric chauvinisms the Millennials will have to step up to extinguish. Will they be the ones to finally address environmental degradation? What lingering discriminations will they put to rest? And what narrow-mindedness will today's youth carry to their graves?

The good news is that we seem to be evolving in the right direction. Each generation does seem to be shedding the blind hatreds and unfounded fears of their elders. Want to accelerate the process - it might be as simple as watching what your kids do and emulating them.

When A View Is Not A View

I have spoked of my apartment view often in the past, perhaps a bit too often. Please note there have been no pictures from my window since I returned to the apartment after the remodel. Speaking of the remodel, while I have been back in the apartment for over two months the final piece of the remodeling was completed just a week ago - the window treatment as the decorators like to refer to it. Or the blinds as us normal folk say.

You see the apartment has a stretch of windows nearly 25 feet across. Big windows from the ceiling to about three feet above the floor. A huge amount of glass, the aforementioned panoramic view and in the afternoon a whole big bunch of sunlight. Without something on the windows there would be no working in the afternoon or early evening as the view is due west and blindingly bright. And, of course, I have my desk right up against the windows so the view is always right there for me to enjoy, ponder and meditate upon. Temperature is only an issue a dozen days a year in the temperate northern california climate, light is the really big concern. So I lobbied for and got vertical blinds. They can stand up to being adjusted as often as five or six times every day, I can tweak them to block light but still let me have the view. Sturdy, functional slats unlike those flimsy running material sheer blinds that look so elegant, but block the view entirely and can't stand up to heavy duty usage day after day.

An interesting thing happened the first day the blinds were in. I closed them and the apartment became a completely different space. The huge view draws me out, the immense wall of blocking blinds wombs me in. The word "cave" will have popped into several of my friends thoughts about now, yes I have my cave again. But the visuals out the windows are compelling and now malleable. I can completely block the light streaming over the desk and still have wide open views both right and left. I can tweak the openings between the slats to limit light but still keep the view (amazing what binocular vision and the human brain can do with partial information). And, yes, the hibernating bear can close off the view entirely and retreat into the cave - after all Plato did it.

--
photo: sfgate.com

Weather Below the Radar

Yes, this is a post about the weather.

No, the weather here in Northern California has not had the impact of the rains, floods and tornados of the rest of the country. But yes, strange and unsettled weather does seem to abound this year.

Today is June 1st, normally we would already be a full month into fire season. You see California has a wet and a dry season. Up here in the north, the rains comes from late October until April. Then everything dries out and we have fire season. Sometimes long fire seasons. Today as I look out my window, I see very little of the great view towards the City and Bay of San Francisco because it is raining. Checking the weather report, there is yet another much bigger storm coming our way this weekend. Our wet season is not even close to being over.

Yesterday I read that the waterfalls in Yosemite Park are spectacular this spring because of all the snow melt. We have had 20% and in some areas 40% above average snow pack this winter. This means great waterfalls, more water for the reservoirs and hopefully more for the Central Valley farms. And, if the view from my window is not a saturated mirage, we are not done. When these storm hit the the mountains, they will add still more to the snow pack.

Last summer most predictions were for below average rainfall totals this year. We are in the midst of an La Nina system out in the Pacific and that means less rain for us and floods in Australia and Indonesia. But massive storm systems out the the Gulf of Alaska have been funneling down our way all winter and the result is La Nina has been trumped by the wet weather from the Great North.

Although this all sounds benign and good for everyone, there is the matter of the fuel for fires when it eventually dries out. Wet weather encourages the growth of underbrush and grasses that are the basic fuels for wild fires, so when we finally get the big dry out; the potential will be there for some big fires as well. 

All in all, strange weather this year. Environmental conspiracy theorists may now take over the conversation.

ADDENDUM: I wrote too soon, today it was announced that a warm spell in June could cause massive flooding from the 2X even 3X higher than average snow pack. The sky is falling! The sky is falling!! And it appears the apocalypse is white and fluffy . . .

Random Whys ? ? ?

You know those amazingly efficient people who swarm into a kitchen, skim away the invisible construction dust, put down shelf paper and manage to put the glasses in the "correct cupboard" the first time? Those people who would rather you stay out of the way and just schlep the empty boxes and packing material out to the trash.

Why didn't I marry one of those people?

How did it get to be so late that the sun is still up long after 7 o'clock. I know there was that spring forward thing and I recognize that evenings up in Shasta were often obscured by grey clouds and snow showers but this feels like I have either fallen forward several months. 

Oh wait!

Why I have this panoramic view again, looking out on the bridges and cities of San Francisco Bay and the great wide Pacific beyond. Why that's the answer, nevermind.

Why are there so many flats roofs in rainy climates? From my 8th story perch, all the houses have slanted roofs. All the apartments roofs are flat. I can see the pools of rainwater as they build on those roofs, but two and only two of the maybe twenty flat roofs are pitched. The big apartment building just to the north actually has waves in its roof lake. Wouldn't just slightly pitched but enough to they shed the rain? Does this not seem like a construction no-brainer? All that sheathing, the super membranes, the sealant, caulking, flanges and tar; why not just a slight pitch?

Why not cant, I ask?

Robert Kennedy Jr. has said that using 3% of the state of Arizona for modern, high-intensity solar power would power the entire country. Now distribution is not addressed in that scenario but add the wind tunnel that is the entire midwest, the undersea turbines for nearly every coastal state and government subsidies being redirected from oil and coal to wind, sun and biomass and we have a clean solution to a very dirty problem.

And we don't have to wait ten years, a single bill in congress could turn the entire energy dependence issue around in our favor. A simple, elegant solution that benefits the American people, the environment and creates literally millions of jobs.

Why not? is the question. I think you know the "not" answer.

Remodel and Renewal in the Void of Time

On December 8th I moved out of the Berkeley apartment and deconstruction began. I know it started then, I barely escaped with my backpack intact. By Dec. 11th there had been even more destruction. The kitchen was gone, the doorway to the sunroom was demolished, what passed for carpet was torn up and shipped out, all appliances were history, parts of the ceiling were down.


Then I left for points north with promises of work and reconstruction but I knew, as we all know, that lingering just into the foggy future was that Bermuda Triangle of the contractor universe, that which sucks up days and weeks of time in world where progress is measured in fanciful delays of material and elaborate excuses emanating from unseen third parties.


Now in early February, just a few short days ago, I witnessed with yea these two eyes of mine the first installation of new kitchen cabinets. There was new tile and new lighting in the bath. I viewed an order for new hardwood flooring complete with a "guaranteed" delivery date and I received governmental paperwork of asbestos ceiling detritus environmentally disposed of. Granite hath been ordered for counter-tops, delays are awaited on this item. The painting maestro is prepared to begin tomorrow with much debated but now imprimatured hues.


The new finish deadline is set at February 15th, I expect February is probably right.

Atlas Shrugged

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs. 

Please excuse the lame, stale joke set-up but you gotta love the punch line. If you remember I wrote a post about six weeks ago on the subject of the 100 Best Novels; I was shocked and a touch dismayed to find the reader's poll portion of that survey topped by Atlas Shrugged. In fact the top ten reader's choice novels included four Ayn Rand books, three L. Ron Hubbard pieces of gibberish plus To Kill a Mockingbird, 1984 and, of course, The Lord of the Rings.


I stumbled on the quote/joke the same day I heard that several independent film makers have actually banned together and have filmed what they intent to become the Atlas Shrugged trilogy, well at least part I. Paul Johansson is directing and playing the lead as John Galt, which conjures images of Dancing With Wolves. Part I of AS is scheduled for release in 2011.


For years Hollywood has looked for a way to bring Atlas Shrugged to the big screen, thankfully if it was going to happen at least it is being done my independent filmmakers rather than a big studio. I really don't expect much from the attempt, remember the several attempts to make Dune into a motion picture. There is a theme to both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead but will it really take two hours or six to delivered the singular idea that it's everyone for themselves?


Hmm, maybe I am wrong here, big Hollywood studios are really good at taking two hours to make one obvious statement. But enough pummeling on individualism, truth, justice and the Amerikan way as depicted by Hollywood.


I am looking out on a stunning orange sky over the SF Bay and the Pacific beyond. I would like to remind my bay area friends that anyone with a good camera and a decent lens or two is welcome to come by over the next month or so, the sunset is slowly creeping towards the Golden Gate and I would really like to have some decent pictures to share here. I will buy dinner, you like Thai?






--
opening quote found on kfmonkey.blogs

Tim's Dilemma

Actually the dilemma depicted above is not mine, well not exactly depending on the interpretation in the eye of the bolder beholder. Whilst surfin' about for some images of dilemma for another article, I happened upon this image, titled Tim's Dilemma. If you are intrigued, I suggest a larger version, as they say the devil is in the details. The image comes from the website of the Modernism gallery here in San Francisco, I will be there next week for a look see. The artist of Tim's Dilemma is Arsen Roje. A bit more surfin' found his exhibit titled Body Parts, which could better have been called hands or better yet fingers. The link is to a short video tour of that installation, a truly different sort of digital experience.

The Modernism gallery has been around for over thirty years and thinking back I remember seeing a Robert Crumb show there in the 90s.

Robert Crumb - Vulnerable Goddess (1990)

Michael Dweck (2002)

Mark Stock (1993)

Rowland Scherman

Me thinks I shall do a bit more pondering on the nature of my current dilemma, whatever that might be.

Manichean

Manichean (man-i-KEE-uhn)
1. pertaining to a strongly dualistic worldview.
2. An adherent of the dualistic religious system of Manes, a combination of gnostic Christianity, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and various other elements, with a basic doctrine of a conflict between light and dark.

I am by nature opposed to dualism. I don't believe in light versus dark or good versus evil. Yet, many of the world's great religions are founded on such beliefs, not to mention many more secular philosophies, dozens of national constitutions and nearly all wars.

On one hand I believe any thoughtful person will concede that nearly nothing can be framed in a purely good versus evil dichotomy. Even in the darkest of evils and the brightest of perfections there are elements of the other. But more importantly the human minds that are observing these clashes of opposites almost never agree on which side is light or evil or dark or good. Grey is the color of the day, all day, every day, until the final day.

Standing on the far side of the battlefield we invariably find other humans who feel as strongly about their position in the light of good and truth and right as those on our side. Yes, yes I know you want to bring up Hitler and the Nazis right about now. I concede there are historical aberrations to contradict any position. However....

As fairly evolved sentient beings we are or should be capable of using our ability to perceive subtle nuances to inform our worldview. We should be able to discount the jingoistic speeches of political leaders and make measured judgments about our side (light) and the other side (dark), because there are equally intelligent, evolved individuals on the other side who would reverse those dark & light flags.

Part of the problem is one position cannot grow to be better, more light or inherently correct unless the opposing philosophy becomes more dark, more evil and inherently wrong. Such dramatic opposition leads to conflict, battle and war. Where does it all end? I would suggest the more productive question is to ask: Where did it all begin?

Conflict usually begins when there exists one or more dualistic views. If you strongly believe your position to be right, then others must be wrong. Wrong equals opposition to your position, which is by self-definition -- right. I encourage examining where your beliefs are dualistic or oppositional to another and then perhaps -- listening to the other. Start small. Begin with a minor disagreement. Leave terrorism, abortion and whaling for later.

Ever wonder why the dominate color of this blog is grey.

Navel Gazing in the Month of May

I have noticed more and more that my mental activity is coming to resemble that of a classic absent-minded professor, except that I am neither absent-minded nor a professor. What I am is nearly completely disinterested in some things that in the past I at least gave some corner of my attention to. This happened once before when I was finishing my doctoral dissertation. In order to complete my Ph.D. back in the fall of '99, for about six weeks, I limited my non-writing activities to food, water, sleep, walks in the park and my cats.

Here a decade further on, writing again is the catalyst for my narrowing view of what passes for the world and news about it. In addition, however, there is the simple reality that I am older and care a whole lot less about what in our society passes for popular culture. I scrolled through the titles of new movie releases available to me on cable the other night and discovering I recognized the titles of 2 out of 104 films. The Hurt Locker and Avatar.

About two months ago I set my new (and first) DVR to record shows I thought I would want to watch. Over that period I have captured and attempted to watch maybe twenty or so different titles. Today, my venture into the world of DVR has been reduced to recording The Daily Show and Namaste Yoga.

OK, maybe I am inexorably becoming an old, ornery hermit. But the pleasure of focusing in depth on a topic and not having the effluvium of the world to distract you is compelling, even a bit addictive. Certainly nearly any endeavor which implies isolation or perceived anti-social behavior should be inspected periodically. I do have good friends here in the Bay Area and I was just in Las Vegas with some of my poker buddies and no he doeth not protest too mucheth. On the other hand, becoming a caricature of an archetype does seem fairly trivial.

Maybe a bit more Flamingoing around is in order.

Getting from A to P

You know how sometimes you hear an argument, which implies some linear correlation, something like if A then B and if B then C and therefore D etc. But as far as you can tell the argument leaves out E, F, G, etc. and somehow just gets to the conclusion P with a kind of magical leap of something unexplained.

Some people refer to that leap as faith. More reason based individuals call the entire process faulty or incomplete logic. Still others come to this blog for entertainment or thoughtful tweaking of their consciousness. There are times when I do enforce the rigors of logic on my process and other times I wander closer to a stream of consciousness flow. Today's its more one than the other.

How long does it take for "the exception" to become "the rule"? And how do you recognize when that happens? -- Patty Paraphrase

Rules are what a functional majority agree on. The exceptions are those occurrences that fall outside of the rule and would disprove the rule but do not happen frequently enough to support changing the rule. Sounds logical right? 

The rule is that we fight a war against drugs and as a weapon in that war we incarcerate individuals who break the rules. The war has never worked. Since 1969 the drug war has been an abject failure. The prisons are overwhelmed with minor drug offenders; over half of all prison inmates are there because of the war on drugs. And over 80% of the citizenry are against the practice. Seems like a good example of a functional majority but the rule remains the exception.

Revolutionaries, guerillas, contras, freedom fighters oppose the reactionary, authoritarian, autocratic power structure. If and when they win and change the rules, they invariably establish a new government that is different but still authoritarian and nearly never populist or freedom loving. Human nature? or is that just another rule . . .

Rule leads to rulers, rule of law, living by the rules and yes, at times, the Golden Rule.

Exception leads to exceptional or perhaps the exceptional leads to the recognition of the exception.

Today's thought: Where in your life are you the exception? Where do you emphasize the exception over the rule? Be happy with those places where you don't follow the crowd and maybe even look for yet another aspect of your life where you would be happier if you left behind another rule and discovered the truly exceptional beyond the madding crowd.

Just to be sure . . .

Things Are Not What They Seem

If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary-wise; what it is it wouldn't be, it would. You see?

--Alice

About fifteen years ago I was sharing living space with a couple. They had a fight. The first evening one of the couple told me their story and I noticed that she gave herself a lot of the responsibility for the acrimony. The next day I heard from the other partner. I was amazed that they both told nearly the same story. They both were honest about their troubles and took responsibility for their own stuff. Sounds healthy and perhaps it was, but they still broke up.

Earlier this week I heard the guy side of another couple's spat and just this morning I got the gal side. He was very critical of her behavior and nearly as insightful about his own failures relationship-wise. She, on the other hand, made it out to be all his fault and uttered not one word about her own collusion in what for me is a very dysfunctional coupling. I am sure they will stay together and maintain their mutual misery for many years.

The funny bone is not a bone, it is the spot where the ulnar nerve touches the humerus.

I had to do a bit of shopping this week. I really hated it. If something is not short-term consumable and perishable, I don't want it. I am so happy that all the furniture in the Berkeley apartment was already here when I moved in and won't go with me when I depart. I just don't like stuff, you might be say I have an aversion to possession. I may be developing an allergic reaction to consumerism.

A shooting star is not a star, it is a meteorite.

Yesterday, I was walking on Telegraph Ave. near the UC Berkeley campus when I noticed a scruffy and potentially high or drunk young man accosting passersby. Generally speaking such noxious persons tend to avoid me with their act because well ... I am a very large male. But when I got to his sidewalk stage he did indeed jump in my face and say: "Hey, what's up man?" 

In a low and threatening voice, I replied: "Move now!" He stepped aside immediately. Now you might think that was the reaction I expected, but it was not. Urban living has taught me that if such encounters take place, the instigator is beyond consideration for his own physical welfare and will generally persist, which escalates the situation. But that did not happen, he moved and I walked on.

On the way back home, on the other side of Telegraph, I noticed from a block away he was still playing his street theatre game but as came abreast of the scene, I also saw a young woman on my side of the avenue watching intently and taking notes. I walked up to her and said:

"Did you run your little project by a Human Subjects Committee?"

Her shocked expression told me I was right and this was some student experiment in urban culture.

"You didn't think of that did you?"

"Ah, no. But..."

"So you felt it was OK to annoy people and disrupt their pleasant Saturday here in Berkeley for your little .. what psychology project?"

"Urban Anthropology and I guess..."

"OK, here is what you do. Go over there and stop Ratzo before someone kicks his ass. Then write up your report and include our conversation. I assume the point of the assignment was for you to learn something about ethnographic research and if you think about it a bit, you should have gained some insight into the process and your professor will recognize that as well."

I walked away and she scurried across the street to pull the plug on the ill considered, over-staged data collection by artificial confrontation.

A piece of catgut is not from a cat, it is usually made from sheep.

Things are not what they seem, the first appearance deceives many. -- Phaedrus

A Cleat in Time

There comes a time in every man's life and I've had many of them.

-- Casey Stengel

I am not a big resolution person. I don't make dramatic changes in my life or lifestyle. 'A line in the sand' always seemed a fairly impermanent metaphor for taking any sort of critical moral stand. Minor tweaks or slight course corrections seem to work better for my phlegmatic demeanor.

However, I have had friends argue that the above analysis flies in the face of certain realities, not the least of which are my fairly frequent employment changes and my fluid homestead history. Add to that I have just added a six month undomiciled meander to my life record.

Pondering this last evening while meditating in a damp San Francisco garden, I was reminded of a dream I had during what passes for a life crisis in my world. This was back in the mid 90's. The dream involved a sailing metaphor. For the sailors in the audience, I am not one. I am not a boater of any sort, so I do not know from whence this imagery arose, but it did.

I felt at that time that I had spent a number of years a bit adrift. I had a job and several serial relationships but there really was no direction in my life. I wasn't headed anywhere in particular. In the dream I was alone on a single masted sailboat with the large sail untrimmed and lolling in the wind. I caste a single line out to a cleat. I felt as if I got just a bit of trim into the sail I could or would begin to navigate the course of my life, instead of skimming around the surface at the behest of whatever wind might blow. Now mind you, these "winds" were providing me with a fairly interesting life at that time but a bit too directionless.

So, feeling directionless again are we? Well, no. I have learned how to use those life lines and cosmic cleats to bring some dynamic tension into my life. The sense of purpose that I consciously laid aside during the last year, while I traveled about the country is slowing rising. I am already lining up both the mundane and the creative endeavors for the next several months. The lanyard is in hand and thankfully the youthful desire to grip and tug mightily is well suppressed.

Watch your head, we're coming about.

Long Time Passings 2009

As the lists begin to roll out at the end of the year, I was struck by how differently we are all affected by the deaths of heroes, stars, celebrities, politicians and others who have gained some notoriety during our contiguous time on the planet. I looked over several of those lists and found two names that saddened me.

Mary Travers, known by most as the female member of Peter, Paul & Mary. These three came together in Greenwich Village in 1961 and included on their first album, Where Have All the Flowers Gone, 500 Miles and If I had a Hammer. Their signature song Puff the Magic Dragon came out in 1963. Together as a group for only eight years, the three often got together for social justice causes in the 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s. Mary Travers was 72.

Soupy Sales began his 'Lunch Time with Soupy' on WXYZ-TV in Detroit in 1953, which put me in the 1st grade. At lunch every day, I would walk the half block home from St. Joseph's and have a bowl of Campbell's soup and a sandwich in front of the television and Soupy. White Fang, Black Tooth, Pookie the Lion, Hippy the Hippo and Willie the Worm were household names where I grew up. Soupy also did an 11 o'clock show that featured jazz musicians who were doing shows in Detroit and later New York. I can't say I remember the late night show. Soupy was 83.

Thirdly, I want to get a bit patriotic (you may not agree with that label) but also damn angry, because thousands of U.S. military have been lost this year in the vain and futile abhorrences our government is carrying out in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of those soldiers have died in their late teens or early 20s. If you agree, it is time to speak up to your elected officials. Stop the Wars Now!

Pondering the Open Road

I knew when I went undomiciled earlier this year that I would be opening up my geographical plans to whims, chance and necessity. So while I am not surprised that I made a last minute alteration to my eastward travel plans, I am a bit annoyed with myself. I was going to head to the great white north via I-90 but for several reasons I am traveling the middle path on I-80. Unfortunately, I have done this drive several times in the past and was really looking forward to the new country up in North Dakota and Minnesota. But the best laid plans of mice and shrinks, I guess.

I really tried the "looking with fresh eyes" mindset today, but basically it was the same trip on the same highway, even though the Rockies are always impressive. So instead, I focused on a couple of scenes from the screenplay and have lots of digital notes to piece together.

I haven't checked the weather channel yet but maybe I am lucky being a bit further south because I have been through some snow and the remains of what appears to have been a semi-significant storm in Utah and Wyoming the last several nights. Don't know how much white stuff there was further north. Here I was ready to enjoy the falls colors of October, which may turn out to be white and off-white. Hopefully Indiana and Michigan will serve up some Oak yellows and Maple reds before the L.L. Bean has to come out.

For all of my former buddies in the poker world, I did stretch the drive yesterday to make it to the West Wendover and spent five or six hours playing in the Rainbow poker room last night. I will post an updated review over on The Poker Atlas. Let's just say the accommodations, the dinner, the fill-up and the cocktails all flowed from the generosity my table mates.

Tomorrow: Wyoming, more Wyoming and a bit of Nebraska. Wednesday: Nebraska, more Nebraska and a hunk of Iowa. Silos and Corn Oh My!

----

photo credit: archives

Meditations on Death & Dying

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

. . . Dylan Thomas

Brave, powerful, encouraging words from Mr. Thomas. But in an expression of today: "Not so much." It would appear that the healthy, the living and the fearful are those who rage against death. Perhaps a reflection of survivors guilt or a sentiment for those taken too young. At the end of a long and fulfilling life, most individuals are long past raging. Acceptance of death is not a failure nor a surrender, unless it is a surrender to life in all its facets.

No, I am not ill; nor is anyone close to me. Always good to get that out there when communicating into the false fury of the internet. However, several of my friends have lost revered and loved relatives recently and several more have a failing uncle, sibling or parents. It would seem that part of my path this fall is to be flecked with others departures. Lessons learned must first be lessons acknowledged.

I may change my travel plans to provide some moral and logistical support in the midst of this wave of mortality. More and more I am blessed by the flexibility of my chosen lifestyle. I can write from anywhere and apparently am capable of adapting to casual chance and haphazard happenstance. Not qualities a hibernating bear is usually known for. But I am not too old to learn new behaviors in the midst of mortality.

Note to several of my readers. I do understand the requests for more concrete facts in my blog posts of late. Perhaps ambiguity is your lesson for this fall. Thanks for reading, I appreciate the comments, even when I do not act on them.

---

photo/art credit: Evening Light: Seasalter

Sensing a Theme?

A recent NBC News poll found that 45% of Americans believed that health care reform would involve pulling the plug on grandma in some form. Leaving aside for a moment my often expressed distrust of how such poll questions are phrased, I bow to Stephen Colbert, who in response to this revelation said:

"Remember kids, in order to maintain an untenable position, you have to be actively ignorant."

This goes along with my quote dump from a few days ago:

"If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way."

and from my 100 Things About Me:

99. I have one prejudice; I abhor voluntary stupidity.

So on the Health Care Reform issue, I offer three thoughts: 

Consider that thought should usually precede talk.

and

No, really. Medicare is a government program.

and

Your elected representative is lying about health care.

Thus ends today's well reasoned and heavily disguised rant. Fox and CNN may resume their regularly scheduled propaganda.

Addendum: The suggestion has been made that I am confusing stupidity and ignorance. Worth pondering.

            

All Those Years Ago

The "9" summers are always full of memories. This year it is 40 years since the moon landing, Woodstock and the Manson murders. I was thinking since blogs are so personal, perhaps a trip back in time would be a good disclosure exercise for bloggers. Sorta like a chronological 'things about me'. 

The question is: Who, What, When, Where and Why was I (x) years ago?

1969 - forty years ago, I was finishing my final class at Kalamazoo College in the summer; we met once a week in a bar.

1979 - thirty years ago, I was teaching real estate in Los Angeles, just a few months from opening a business that would change my life.

1999 - just a decade ago, finishing my Ph.D. dissertation and planning a move back to Michigan.

1949 - yep sixty years ago, my family moved from Detroit to a rural village 50 miles west. My mother always said that she thought they had moved to the end of the earth.

1964 - the beginning of my senior year in high school, when just about everything seemed possible.

1984 - the Summer Olympics in L.A. an interesting time, the freeways were as empty as they have ever been, everyone thought it would be gridlock, so no one but the Olympics fans came to town that summer.

2000 - my first summer back in the midwest after 25 years in California; idyllic.

1961 - worked in the family pharmacy for the first time; best career training I ever had.

1971 - lived for a year in Boston; I regret that it wasn't much longer.

1975 - moved from Michigan to California.

1991 - moved from L.A. to S.F.

2010 - well that is an excellent question.

Assorted Ramblings

[Content Disclosure: A Little of This & A Little of That]

Just a mishmash of meanderings in and around the human psyche from my observations over the past several weeks, months, days and hours.

Otis on Twitter, Identity Theft and Cyber Sink Holes: "Let’s be clear: If you are a public figure, ever hope to be, or are serving as a PR consultant or publicist for someone who stands to be even mildly famous, you are being irresponsible for not securing a spot on Twitter and Facebook. Yes, Twitter and Facebook can be vapid holes of despair from which nothing good can ever rise. They also happen to be places where hundreds of thousands of people spend hours each day. If you are a politician or leader, these people are your constituents. If you have any hope of connecting with these people you need to be on top of it. At the very least, you need to have “your people” on top of it. And you need to check out who is using your name."

Nothing is quite so painful than to be following the WSOP tweeterverse and have some tangential player have a cyber-meltdown for all to read (divorce, broken air-conditioning, cursed by the poker gods, loss of bladder control, rolled by a hooker, did I mention divorce and who gets custody of the commemorative plates). As the Rob Lowe character on Brothers and Sisters said: "Get a filter for God's sake!"

Vapid holes of despair from which nothing good can ever rise. I promise Otis a citation every single time I used this line.

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Bagels and OCD: When toasting two bagels with only a two slice toaster. Do you take the first bagel out when it is 3/4 done and then fully toast the second bagel before you finish the first? You know so the first one does not cool off before you get to consume it. 

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Have you ever been stuck at a poker table or in a doctor's office or nirvana forbid on an airplane and the person next to you is going on about a topic you are intimately familiar with and they are just chronically misinformed. I mean usually it's because they are stupid. And yes ladies they are always men and always completely imbued with the 100% righteous knowledge that they are speaking the truth. It happens a lot to WSOP poker media when we take a day off to play in one of the smaller rooms here in Las Vegas. Yesterday, I played at Flamingo and the fool/tool from Indiana on my left knew all there was to know about the Series. You see he played for two hours in the most recent $1500 Donkument and that gave him his status of expertise.

I did not intervene in his brilliant pontifications but when he began his insider discourse on Mike Matusow and Phil Hellmuth, I thought my buddy at the table would explode from the repressed laughter. At one point, following a particularly erroneous Matusow comment, he even said: "Well this guy should know, he wrote the book." But the expert just ignored that and went on with his highly informative fiction.

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On an international note. It seems lots of news coverage is being given today to the elections in Iran. It appears that they may not have reported the true vote totals. Shock and anger seems to be the overwhelmingly popular reactions. I am shocked that more informed media types are not more prone to observe -- well Duh! And less we forget: Land of the Free, Home of the Brave: Florida November 2000. And before all of my newly acquired conservative friends get their panties in a knot or a painful cameltoe.... If the voters had gotten Al Gore, in all likelihood Barack would not be president today. Be careful which elections you steal.

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You didn't miss my guest spot over on the The Tao of Poker All-Stars did you? Just one of the infrequent opportunities for R-rated Shrinkable observations. It's called: "Ladies of the Night: WSOP version."

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Poker rooms I have played this summer:

Flamingo -- NLHE

Binion's -- NLHE tournament

Planet Hollywood -- NLHE

Orleans -- Omaha8

Tuscany -- NLHE tournament

Binions -- Omaha8 tournament

Flamingo -- NLHE

M Resort -- NLHE 

Venetian -- Omaha8 

SouthPoint -- Limit HE 

M Resort -- Limit HE 

Rooms where I couldn't get a game:

Golden Gate

Bill's Gambling Hall

Imperial Palace

Luxor