Why blog?...just to be sure you have seen these items

JAW DROPPING

2012-02-12T03:30:00.000-05:00

While the visual display of quantitative information is an impressive art form, the view of the "Ring of Fire" in the Pacific basin and associated tectonic plates is stunning.
http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2012/02/aftershocks.html
and
http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2012/02/ring-of-fire.html

NIGHTMARE IS REAL

2012-02-11T03:30:00.000-05:00

As my medical people have tried to find the balance in my medication for "mild cognitive impairment," Kelly and I have wandered into the fearful world of nightmares. I'm talking about the kind of dreaming experiences that cause you to choose wakeful nights over sleep because of the demons that await in which the "fox's teeth are in the bunny."
http://www.elabs7.com/functions/message_view.html?mid=1417796&mlid=499&siteid=20130&uid=689552c9ba
Gavin Ewart (books by this author), born in London, England (1916). He's the author of many books of poetry, including Pleasures of the Flesh (1966) and The Learned Hippopotamus (1987). He started his poetic career early, when he was just 17 years old, with a poem in the prestigious British literary journal New Verse.
"For nursery days are gone, nightmare is
real and there are no god Fairies.
The fox's teeth are in the bunny
and nothing can remove them, honey."

MAJESTIC EQUALITY

2012-02-10T03:30:00.000-05:00

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.

ANATOLE FRANCE, The Red Lily

BILLIONAIRE ABUSE

2012-02-09T03:30:00.000-05:00

Gail Collins exposes the next scandal.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/the-revenge-of-saul-alinsky/#more-119875
This should be a wake-up call to us all about the little-discussed national scandal of billionaire abuse. All around the nation, we are hearing stories about elderly billionaires being taken advantage of by grasping politicians. Here in New York we have just learned that Republican candidates for the State Senate wheedled $436,500 out of a 97-year-old billionaire over the last year. This sort of predatory attack on our billionaires must stop!

NOISE IN THE STREETS

2012-02-08T11:43:00.001-05:00

I am neither a lawyer nor the son of a lawyer..but my two children are lawyers...so: This same-sex marriage issue has many barriers to overcome. I suggest caution in celebrating court decisions of this week.

http://www.thenation.com/article/166127/proposition-8-unconstitutional-whats-next-anti-gay-law

At the end of the day, the only legal scholar who has proved to be 100 percent prescient is Nan Hunter, Georgetown Law professor, who wrote last night: “No wedding bells will be chiming, and the case is still far from over. But there will be a lot of noise in the streets. That is a safe prediction.”

FLOCKS...RUNNING IN CIRCLES

2012-02-08T03:30:00.000-05:00

Lessons in pastoral care for ministers: The hazards of flocks running in circles!

http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2012/02/sheep-cyclone.html

QUESTION OF THE DAY

2012-02-07T15:09:00.001-05:00

To win in November, Obama believes he needs outside money--but what does outside money need from him?
http://www.thenation.com/blog/166109/obama-unleashes-his-super-pac?rel=emailNation

It’s not good enough for Obama’s administration to say simply it needs this support to win in November. It probably does. The key question is: what about after November? To what will they owe their new big donors?

NO OTHER NOW

2012-02-07T03:30:00.000-05:00

In the aftermath of two mild strokes, my Neuro-psychologist has schooled me with this advice:
"Don't compare your current self with your past self." At any age, that is a difficult lesson to practice.
A friend reminded me of the book, "Dandelion Wine," and that led to this memorable quote containing a similar message:
http://thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Dandelion_Wine/Dandelion_Wine22.html
Free Online Study Guide for Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
"It won't work," Mr. Bentley continued, sipping his tea. "No matter how hard you try to be what you once were, you can only be what you are here and now. Time hypnotizes. When you're nine, you think you've always been nine years old and will always be. When you're thirty, it seems you've always been balanced there on that bright rim of middle life. And then when you turn seventy, you are always and forever seventy. You're in the present, you're trapped in a young now or an old now, but there is no other now to be seen."

MIRACLES

2012-02-06T03:30:00.000-05:00

TwoBoys Walking

Yes, miracles happen,

Sunrise, sunset,

Healing wounds,

Songs of nature,

Wondrous curiosity,

Pull of gravity.

Rarely do weanticipate miracles,

Calendar and clock,

Examination and surgery,

Fretting andexplaining

Shriners and mission,

Fashioning andattaching.

A treasured story,Amahl*.

A beloved orphan,Kenbe.

Amahl’s mother and Kenbe’sNashville family.

Miracle boy story

meets

Miracle boy story.

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

*Amahland the Night Visitors

Place: Near Bethlehem

Time: The first century, just after the birthof Christ

Amahl,a disabled boy who can walk only with a crutch, has a problem with telling talltales and, occasionally, lying. He is sitting outside playing his shepherd'spipe when his mother calls for him (Amahl! Amahl!). After muchpersuasion, he enters the house but his mother does not believe him when hetells her there is an amazing star "as big as a window" outside overtheir roof (O Mother You Should Go Outside; Stop Bothering Me!).

Laterthat night, Amahl's mother weeps, praying that Amahl not become a beggar (Don'tCry Mother Dear). After bedtime (From Far Away We Come), there is aknock at the door and the mother tells Amahl to go see who it is (Amahl ...Yes Mother!). He is amazed when he sees three splendidly dressed kings (theMagi). They tell the mother and Amahl they are on a long journey to give giftsto a wondrous child and they would like to rest at their house, to which themother agrees (Good Evening!; Come In!). The mother goes to fetchfirewood, and Amahl seizes the opportunity to speak with the kings. King Balthazaranswers Amahl's questions about his life as a king and asks what Amahl does.Amahl responds that he was once a shepherd, but his mother had to sell hissheep. Now, he and his mother will have to go begging. Amahl then talks withKing Kaspar, who is childlike, eccentric, and a bit deaf. Kaspar shows Amahlhis box of magic stones, beads, and licorice, and offers Amahl some of thecandy (Are You A Real King?; This is My Box). The mother returns(Amahl, I Told You Not To Be A Nuisance!). Amahl is told to go fetch theneighbors (All These Beautiful Things; Have You Seen a Child?) sothe kings may be fed and entertained properly (Shepherds! Shepherds!; Emily!Emily; Olives and Quinces; Dance of the Shepherds).

Afterthe neighbors have left and the kings are resting, the mother attempts to stealfor her son some of the kings' gold that was meant for the Christ Child(AllThat Gold). She is thwarted by the kings' page. When Amahl wakes to findthe page grabbing his mother, he attacks him. Seeing Amahl's weak defense ofhis mother and understanding the motives for the attempted theft, King Melchiorsays she may keep the gold as the Holy Child will not need earthly power orwealth to build his kingdom. The mother says she has waited all her life forsuch a king and asks the kings to take back the gold. She wishes to send a giftbut has nothing to send. Amahl, too, has nothing to give the Child except hiscrutch. When he offers it to the kings, his leg is miraculously healed. Withpermission from his mother, he leaves with the kings to see the child and givehis crutch in thanks for being healed.

Tonight, I foundthe 1951 original on Youtube. When I was in a high school chorus (1956), weperformed Amahl with the Birmingham Civic Opera Co.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzx-s46vjpY&feature=related

Satchmo offers a benediction:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2VCwBzGdPM

MATERNAL OMNI-PRESENCE

2012-02-05T03:30:00.000-05:00

If it is not a chair, it is your mother!
http://tuesday-johnson.tumblr.com/tagged/hidden-mother

INCESSANT BARKING

2012-02-04T03:30:00.000-05:00

Among my favored definitions/motivations for blogging:

	One dog in conversation with a second dog, says, “I had my own blog for a while, but I decided to go back to just pointless, incessant barking.” "The generalizing writer is like the passionate drunk, stumbling into your house mumbling: I know I'm not being clear, exactly, but don't you kind of feel what I'm feeling?" "Give it a second!... It's going to space! Can you give it a second to get back from space?" “ …a loose sally of the mind; an irregular undigested piece.” "I've seen lonely times when i could not find a friend. But I always thought I'd see you one more time again."

One dog in conversation with a second dog, says, “I had my own blog for a while, but I decided to go back to just pointless, incessant barking.”
"The generalizing writer is like the passionate drunk, stumbling into your house mumbling: I know I'm not being clear, exactly, but don't you kind of feel what I'm feeling?"
"Give it a second!... It's going to space! Can you give it a second to get back from space?"
“ …a loose sally of the mind; an irregular undigested piece.”
"I've seen lonely times when i could not find a friend. But I always thought I'd see you one more time again."

MY HOMETOWN MEMORIES # 2

2012-02-03T03:30:00.001-05:00

In downtown Birmingham, it was quite common to say to friends and family, "I will meet you under the clock at Loveman's." Nearby was the showplace, "Alabama Theatre."

The Alabama Theatre is a movie palace in Birmingham, Alabama. It was built in 1927 by Paramount's Publix Theatre chain as its flagship theater for the southeastern region of the United States.^[2] Seating 2,500 people at the time, it was the largest in the Birmingham Theatre district. The district was once home to a myriad of large theaters that featured vaudeville, performing arts, nickelodeons, and large first-run movie palaces. The Alabama is the only district theater still operating today. Built to show silent films, the Alabama still features its original Wurlitzer theater organ. Other than the Alabama, the Lyric Theatre is the only theater still standing in the district.

My father's employees (Rogers' Painting Co.) performed the painting restorations (including gold leaf applications) to the Alabama Theatre over several generations. For many years, the Wurlitzer Organist was Stan Malotte. His first performance at the Alabama was on May 27, 1937.
During his time at the Alabama, Malotte was well known for rewriting the lyrics of popular songs of the time with lyrics pertaining to current events, from the local to national levels. He also often selected music to be performed based on the movie being shown. He was also known to drink quite a bit, although some maintain this actually made him a better entertainer. Malotte also played the organ for WAPI-AM from their studios in the Protective Life Building. Thanks to my dear high school friend, Nancy, I was reminded that the most commonly used musical setting for "The Lord's Prayer" was written by Malotte's brother...just google "Malotte's Lords Prayer."

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

MY HOMETOWN MEMORIES # 1

2012-02-02T03:30:00.001-05:00

In Birmingham, Alabama, we were devoted customers at Ollie's Barbecue. The wait staff called out the orders verbally...the cooks worked in the middle of the store. Their conversation was a sub-text to the environment.
That is...we were devoted customers until Ollie McClung refused to serve African Americans after the passage of the Civil Rights Act. When I returned to visit Birmingham after military service in 1965, our family boycotted Ollie's...but I must say there are days when I yearn for the aromas and tastes and sub-texts of that environment.

Ollie's Barbecue was a small, family-owned restaurant that operated in Birmingham, Alabama, and that seated 220 customers. It was located on a state highway and was 11 blocks from an interstate highway. In a typical year, approximately half of the food it purchased from a local supplier originated out-of-state. It catered to local families and white collar workers and provided take-out service to African American customers.
McClung argued that the Civil Rights Act was unconstitutional, at least as applied to a small, private business such as his. McClung further argued that the amount of food purchased by Ollie's that actually crossed state lines (about half of the food at Ollies) was so minuscule that Ollie's effectively had no effect on interstate commerce (although McClung admitted that a significant amount of Ollie's business was to interstate travelers). Consequently, McClung argued that Congress had no power to regulate Ollie's Barbecue under the Commerce Clause.
In 1964, the court ruled unanimously that the Civil Rights Act is constitutional and that it was properly applied against Ollie's Barbecue.
After decades in operation, Ollie's Barbecue moved to the suburb of Pelham in 1999 and closed in 2001.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katzenbach_v._McClung

WE HAVE BEEN HERE BEFORE

2012-02-01T03:30:00.000-05:00

A well crafted video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC2BirvL44A
*********************************************
For the record, there are 51 million people with incomes less than 50 percent above the poverty line.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/02/does-romneys-im-not-concerned-about-the-very-poor-line-matter/252336/

In light of this, Romney's comment isn't a gaffe so much as an artless description of his tax policy. He's more concerned about cutting taxes for middle class investors and businesses than he is for keeping tax rates low for lower-income Americans. You and I might have different ideas about whether that's the right direction for our tax policy. But I hope we can agree that this isn't the kind of thing you want advertised with gaffes about "not being concerned" about the very poor.

Whenever I write about tax policy, I'm asked how I would address our ridiculous tax code. The short answer is that I would lower the rates, shave the tax expenditures, and raise revenue, starting at the top. My chief beef with Romney is that he's not interested in more revenue, but he also thinks 2011 taxes are too low for millions of lower-income families.

NEWT AND THE VISION THING

2012-01-31T04:00:00.000-05:00

With "Shrub" aka Bush 43, aka George Bush, it was famine; with Newt it is a feast on the vision thing!

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/01/why-i-secretly-root-for-newt/252198/
The first President Bush was derided for lacking "the vision thing." With Newt that's not a problem. My favorite part of his visionary mode is the part where he... just... keeps... going. Take the space colony thing. It's not crazy, if you're trying to win the Florida primary, to say that you'll increase spending for NASA. I don't even think it's necessarily ill-advised to set as your eventual goal a continuously inhabited base on the moon. And I suppose, if you want, you could call this base a "colony". But at that point you're at the outer limits of the vision an aspiring president should evince. Newt boldly goes where no aspiring president has gone before. He has pledged that as president he would support something that he (who else?) dreamed up as a congressman: "the northwest ordinance for space," which says that, once you have 13,000 Americans on the moon, the moon can apply for statehood.
The problem isn't the conundrums this would raise. (With one senator per 6,500 moon residents, would lunar interests be overrepresented in Congress? Or might this effect be partly offset by the difficulty senators would have flying home to take the pulse of their constituents on three-day weekends?) The problem, rather, is that this sounds like a crazy person talking!
What's not to like?

1946-1970

2012-01-30T03:30:00.000-05:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/opinion/the-republican-contest.html?src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Fopinion%2Findex.jsonp%3Fpartner%3Drss%26emc%3Drss
Economic growth and rising productivity are needed for broadly shared prosperity, but rising living standards require policies that ensure regular increases in the minimum wage, which peaked in 1968; greater investment in the social safety net; full employment as a government priority; progressive taxation; and effective financial regulation to avoid overgrowth followed by collapse.
These kinds of policies dominated from the late-1940s to the 1970s, a time of broadly shared prosperity and a strong middle class. Those policies were then systematically reversed, income inequality began to explode and productivity growth slowed. Tax cuts for the rich and assaults on programs for the poor and middle class worsened inequality during the years of George W. Bush.
The answer is not more of the same failed policies.

INNOVATIONS IN EDUCATION

2012-01-29T03:30:00.000-05:00

Educational experiences that are integrated...intimate...and multi-cultural have always fascinated and attracted me.

Principles underlying the Foundation Program

All students at Quest University Canada take 16 required courses in their first four terms. These blocks constitute the Foundation Program. The program is designed to:

How it works: At the end of their Foundation Program, Quest undergraduates working with a faculty advisor submit a statement of their "Question": a two-page proposal describing a topic of special interest to them. The Question guides students' attention in a sustained and rigorous intellectual inquiry during the final 16 blocks. The proposal may take the form of a statement or a question or even a set of related questions. For example, one student might be interested in the broad thematic question, "What is honour?" Another might choose a specific policy topic like, "How does politics influence the treatment of global epidemics such as malaria, SARS or AIDS?"

Sample "Question":

How can we improve the quality of health care?
What is equilibrium in nature?
How do cultural values predict the effectiveness of conservation projects?
What defines human character?
Does democracy have the capacity to solve world problems?
How does improper nutrition during childhood influence a child's risk of developing chronic illnesses later in life?
How can one create an environmentally and socially responsible business?
How can outdoor and experiential education be used to enrich undergraduate studies?
Do fairytales affect gender roles in today's society?
What is Science?
What is Need?
What is Progress?
What is Consciousness?
What is the best way to educate a child?
How can faculty athletic representatives help solve academic corruption in America's universities?
What is Love?
How does spirituality develop in children?
What is the relationship between media and the human condition?
How do children develop language?
What is Resilience?
How can a better understanding of spatio-temporal scale lead to more effective environmental management?
How can a better understanding of the relationship between human and environmental health promote increased social and ecological wellness?
What are the effects of human activities on aquatic life?
What does it take to plan an event?
How can we prevent exploitation of children in developing countries?
What is a holistic way to empower people in poverty?
What is Ethnography?
What will replace fossil fuels as the world's energy storage medium?
What is a just foreign policy?
What are the links between economics, democracy, and corruption?
Which formal and informal institutions promote the conservation of wildlife?
How does humanity's manipulation of the environment affect the spread of infectious disease?
By understanding basic human behavior, how can we develop more effective methods to prevent destructive natural resource extraction and conserve the remaining environment?
Do youth specialize in sports too early?
How to create a successful market niche?
When does persuasion become manipulation?
Should morality guide foreign policy?
How do we successfully market environmentally friendly products and change consumer behavior?
What can modern neuroscience and philosophy teach us about qualia?
How do markets fail?
Why do we view ourselves as something separate from nature?

The Concentration: Years 3 & 4

Principles underlying the Concentration Program

Over the course of the concentration program students work in depth on a single topic of their choice. The foundation program will already have exposed you to the methods and subject matters covered by the various disciplines, so that when it comes time to design your Individual Concentration Program, you will be able to make enlightened decisions about how to pursue your academic interests. The Individual Concentration Program investigates one topic or theme, either in a single discipline or across disciplinary boundaries.
Each student's Individual Concentration Program consists of four principal elements:

the Question

It may also include experiential learning components such as a semester abroad, leadership training, service learning, or an internship. In principle, nothing limits the number of Individual Concentration Programs that students develop at Quest - we expect our students to surprise and challenge us.

Out of the 16 blocks of the upper level terms, here's how it works:

The main focus of the concentration program is depth of understanding - sustained attention to a question of personal importance to the student. Attaining a measure of depth means knowing what a good question is, and knowing how to pursue the answer to it. It is a skill for life, and a preeminent achievement of a liberal arts and sciences education at Quest.

ONE NATION UNDER CANADA

2012-01-28T03:30:00.000-05:00

"History ... is a nightmare from which I am trying to wake."

JAMES JOYCE, Ulysses

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/for-god-so-loved-the-1-percent/?ref=opinion

HPCCR

2012-01-26T11:01:00.000-05:00

In my retirement plan for this first year, I have included taking steps to become a volunteer with the "Hospice and Palliative Care Charlotte Region" (HPCCR). Last week, I completed the 12 hours of training required of all volunteers. (Twelve hours of continuing education are required annually.) The cap on volunteer hours is 4 hours per week. Each patient (current census...661) has an inter-disciplinary team assigned to their case. When agreed to, one volunteer is on each team.
During the training, I made these observations:
Medical personnel and social workers on the team are task oriented and are motivated to solve problems in their respective vocational fields.
Chaplains are not task oriented and inherently are motivated to walk with the patients and their families.
Thus, it has ever been the existential task of the priests, the rabbi, the shaman,and the minister:

To walk with those whose river of life is merging with the sea.
Yet there is no getting around the ocean,
We must go on finding out the story.
While our lives are imperfect
Nevertheless, they are ours.
When the last acts of kindness arrive,
it is hard to know what you are going to want.

And walking with the caregivers
as they panic to do more, as they stuggle to say goodbye.
They fret over the loved one's incoherence.
In the rush of days, the hours are
both interminable and few.
They want to believe that the loved one's
whole was so much greater
than the sum of one's existence.

So the Chaplain's task is to walk,
and finally, to fashion a benediction.
Whatever harm done...forgive.
Whatever puzzlement...admit.
Wherever others have been dismissed...comfort.
For lives that have been withered...renew.
Whatever joy and goodness...celebrate.

STARSHIP

2012-01-25T03:30:00.000-05:00

I dub thee "Black Knight of Mars"
http://www.neatorama.com/2012/01/17/meteorites-from-mars-rain-down-on-earth/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Neatorama+%28Neatorama%29

WORD OF THE DAY

2012-01-24T20:32:00.000-05:00

Definition of DESPICABLE

deserving to be despised : so worthless or obnoxious as to rouse moral indignation

Recently in a Republican debate, Newt Gingrich labelled the question: "Despicable."

He was in error.

The behavior being referred to should have been labelled "despicable."

The question was not in and of itself...despicable.

I have some authority on this subject. I have engaged in despicable behavior. When I have been questioned about my actions, it has never occurred to me to label the question or the questioner: despicable.

THOSE WHO ARE ABSENT

2012-01-24T03:30:00.002-05:00

Excerpt from Walter Bruggeman:

State of the Union
We will hear as the Sergeant of Arms says dramatically,aisle with much backslapping, applause, and good humor;
We will all be there:
the leading military people, the chief justice,the senate leader,the house leader,no doubt a few momentary "heroes" in the balcony.
We will listen to... hear that the union is in good shape:the war is being won;the economy is coming back;migrants are facing new rigors;unemployment is down.
There will be much applause—and we will be glad for such political performance. Except, of course, we know better.
For this is not an assembly of the union,this is a gathering of "the suits,"the men—and some women—who have good educations and even better connections.
It is a meeting of wealth, and entitlement, and privilege.
We will watch and notice with some wistfulness all of those who are absent from the meeting:
the poor who lack voice,
the pensioners who lack health coverage,
the unemployed who lack benefits,
the gays who still live under threat,
the victims of disasters who still need our help,
the prisoners who live at the very edge of
their constitutional rights.

QUESTION OF THE DAY

2012-01-24T03:30:00.001-05:00

http://www.thenation.com/blog/165793/six-gop-debate-questions-based-what-we-know-after-south-carolina
African-Americans make up a higher percentage of South Carolina’s population than in all but four states. The latest Census data says that African-Americans represent 28 percent of South Carolina’s population. Yet, according to exit polling, barely 1 percent of the participants in Saturday’s South Carolina Republican primary were African-American. In general, what is the Republican Party doing wrong and, specifically, what are this year’s Republican presidential candidates doing wrong, when it comes to attracting African-American voters? Are there candidates, in particularly Newt Gingrich, who have made matters worse?

STATISTICS OF THE DAY

2012-01-23T03:30:00.000-05:00

(Sources embeded)

Kids in poverty: 16.4 million, 22 percent of all kids.
Deep poverty (less than $11,157 for a family of four): 20.5 million people, 6.7 percent of population.
Impact of public policy, 2010: without government assistance, poverty twice as high—nearly 30 percent.
Impact of public policy, 1964–1973: poverty rate fell by 43 percent.
Number of Americans “deep poor,” “poor” or “near poor”: 100 million, or 1 in 3.

QUESTION OF THE DAY

2012-01-22T03:30:00.000-05:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/post/would-we-love-tim-tebow-if-he-were-muslim/2012/01/12/gIQArW1XtP_blog.html
...if a Muslim player thanked Allah after every game, ended every interview with "praise Allah," would we afford him the same respect we give Tebow?

MY READING CHAIR

2012-01-21T08:30:00.000-05:00

Reading is so important, so necessary to the nourishment of the mind and spirit that I feel it should be as seriously ceremonial as a church service. Ideally we need a comfortable chair with back and arm support, and good, well directed light, a rest for the book if it is too heavy to hold comfortably, a small table with our favourite drink to hand, and silence and solitude. It is an ideal few of us are able to obtain.

from the August 15th entry of Time to Be in Earnest: A Fragment of Autobiography by P.D. James

EDITH MARIE PATRICH ROGERS

2012-01-20T03:30:00.001-05:00

January 20, 1914-February 1, 2003

I'm writing a poem about you when you were a child.

What story are you telling?

The one when you and Granny ran away to Florida.

When did I tell you that story?

You never did. Granny told me that story.

Is that a sad story...I don 't remember?

Divorce, your little brother's death, yes, it's very sad.

Did I tell you about singing and picking cotton with my Uncle?

No, but you told me stories about Pop's childhood.

Did I tell you about my girlfriends in high school?

No, but I have the yearbook with missing pages about you, that you toreout.

Did I give you the little rocking chair I had as a child?

Mother, did you feel lonely as an illegitimate child in rural Alabama?

I don't remember.

I sit with you now in the nursing home, …Singing,"la…la…la…la…la…la…” and wondering who we are.

And you say to me, Well, who do you think we are? …Who do you thinkyou are?

I don't know...a carbon-based life form?

Don't you remember the hornet's nest at Mentone? …It hummed with life.

When you got close the hair on your neck would stand… your skin wouldstart to vibrate… you would stand there and let the hum swallow you.

You and I and the hornets are vibrating threads of energy,

Just songs and vibrations everywhere.

You are a song …

I am a song…

“la…la…la…la…la…la…la…la….”

BUT MY NEIGHBOR IS RED NECK

2012-01-19T03:30:00.000-05:00

Your vodka is Russian. Your pizza is Italian. Your kebab is Turkish. Your democracy is Greek. Your coffee is Brazilian. Your movies are American. Your tea is Sri Lankan. Your shirt is Indian. Your oil is Saudi Arabian. Your car is Japanese. Your electronics are Chinese. Your numbers are Arabic, your letters are Latin. And you complain that your neighbour is an immigrant?

KENBE "DOO FEET"

2012-01-18T15:58:00.000-05:00

Today, one of my grandsons is being fitted for a prosthetic leg...final adjustments are being made at the Shriner's hospital in Lexington, KY. When his parents brought him from Haiti to live with them last April they named him Kenbe.

That name comes from the Haitian Creole statement "Mwen kanpe fò" or "I'm standing strong."

Literally: "kenbe fò" meaning "hold strong"

OUR EVOLVING PLANET

2012-01-18T03:30:00.000-05:00

The wonder and mystery of our home.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2012/jan/10/satellite-eye-december-in-pictures#/?picture=383991413&index=18

WHO WE ARE

2012-01-17T03:30:00.000-05:00

Re: architecture. I have two cherished pictures in a shared frame. One is Mr Jefferson's academical village at the University of Virginia. Students and faculty were intended to study and live in an intermingled fashion on 'the Lawn." I hope you have visited that bucolic, human space. A summary history: http://www.virginia.edu/100yearslawn/index.html

University of Virginia

The second picture is another academical village named "Vicars Close," Wells Cathedral, Somerset, UK. On two occasions, I have visited that site. It was designed for the cathedral school students to live among their professors.
In each of these academic settings, I have found the ideal expressed in the TED:
A sense of place: your ability to create places that are meaningful and places of quality and character depends entirely on your ability to define space with buildings,and to employ the vocabularies, grammars, syntaxes, rhythms and patterns of architecture in order to inform us who we are.

Vicars Close Wells Cathedral

SOMETHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN

2012-01-16T03:30:00.000-05:00

First the usual disclaimers.
I'm not a politician, or the son of a politician.
I'm not an economist or the son of an economist.
Alan Simpson is a politician; he is an informed economist; and he is a curmudgeon.
I am a certified curmudgeon.
I listen to Fareed Zakaria when he asks questions.
I listen to Alan Simpson when he answers questions.
http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/09/former-senator-alan-simpson-on-americas-failing-politicians/
ZAKARIA: Are you resigned to the fact that nothing is likely to happen on your proposal and the ideas around it until the election? Or do you think that there's still a possibility, in the next year, something can happen?
SIMPSON: We'll see what happens. But every day that goes by, this is like a stink bomb in a garden party. And as they're eating their tea cookies and saying nothing is going to happen in America, this odor is coming out from under the table because you can't get there by doing waste, fraud and abuse, foreign aid, earmarks, Nancy Pelosi's airplane, Air Force One, all Congressional pensions. Give it up. That's about 4 or 5 percent of what we're in.
You have to go deal with Medicare, Medicaid, the solvency of Social Security and defense. And if you can't raise the retirement age to 68 by the year 2050 without the AARP losing their marbles and Grover slavering at the mouth on every kind of thing you talk about, calling it a tax increase, we won't make it.
If that's the kind of powers out there and making a dysfunctional government, why, pull up your shorts and start running for the exit.
ZAKARIA: Senator, when I was growing up and coming of age, I remember you were thought of as a pretty conservative guy. I mean you were representing Wyoming, after all. And to listen to you now, you sound like a moderate. Have you changed or has the Republican Party changed?
SIMPSON: Well, I think the Republican Party changed. But where - where - what happened with me is, I always felt that abortion is a hideous and terrible thing.
Let's all admit that. But it's a deeply intimate and personal decision. Here's a party that believes in government out of your lives, the precious right of privacy and the right to be left alone. Well, then what are you doing in this issue? Partial birth abortion is not an emotional issue, it's a medical issue. It's to free the birth canal for a - hopefully, a later child. I mean it’s madness.
Gay-lesbian issues, we all have someone we know or love who's gay or lesbian. What the hell is this all about? Madness. And if we're going to get trapped in that we're headed for some more strife.
ZAKARIA: Senator, a real pleasure to have you on. I hope we can have you on again.
SIMPSON: Well, I hope you'll stick around, because you speak with clarity and you - and you ask great questions and you don't get caught up in all the garbage on the extreme right and extreme left. People - Erskine and I go around the country and we can speak to any group, right or left. Give us an hour, let them ask questions. We'll get a standing ovation because people are thirsting for somebody to give them something other than BS or mush.
And both parties are giving the - giving the American people BS and mush. And they're sick of it. And something is going to happen. I don't know what it is, but people are smarter than their politicians.
They always have been. And we'll see what happens.

UNIVERSAL BLESSINGS

2012-01-15T15:09:00.000-05:00

Gloria

The tenacity of Earth and its creatures.

Kyrie eleison

These children who will go on to save whatwe cannot.

Baruch ata Adonai

The ordinary tenacity of plants and people.

The center of the universe which iseverywhere, not the least place in the human heart.

Alleluia

Love that survives anger, and winter, anddespair, and sorrow and even death.

Shalom

Love that persists.

Nam myo-ho renge kyo

Calm that is the seed in the dark.

Amen

For endings that are beginnings, forbeginnings that are endings.

Alleluia

For the circle, the spiral, the web, theegg, the orbit, the center, the seed, the flower, the fruit, the opening, thedeath, the release, the seed.

Amen

We are going on.

Amen

It is going on.

Amen

Blessed be.

DAMN!

2012-01-15T03:30:00.000-05:00

This photo was taken by a soldier in Afghanistan of a helicopter rescue mission.
The pilot is a PA National Guard guy who flies EMS choppers in civilian life.
Now how many people on the planet you reckon could set the ass end of a
chopper down on the roof top of a shack, on a steep mountain cliff, and hold
it there while soldiers load wounded men in the rear.

STEPHEN---STEPHEN---STEPHEN

2012-01-14T03:30:00.000-05:00

A delicious serving for the "Colbert Nation."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/magazine/stephen-colbert.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
“It’s bizarre,” remarked an admiring Jon Stewart, whose own program, “The Daily Show,” immediately precedes “The Colbert Report” on Comedy Central and is where the Colbert character got his start. “Here is this fictional character who is now suddenly interacting in the real world. It’s so far up its own rear end,” he said, or words to that effect, “that you don’t know what to do except get high and sit in a room with a black light and a poster.”

SADLY, IT MUST BE SAID.

2012-01-13T03:30:00.000-05:00

After South Carolina GOP debate comment:

The debate was held on the MLK Holiday, the Fox News questioners prefaced a couple of questions noting that the debate was taking place on the MLK Holiday, and yet I do not believe that any of the candidates offered any tribute to Dr. King. Nothing in the way of a salute to his contributions or a tribute to his life's work and accomplishments. It could have been perfunctory, anything. I realize they were in South Carolina. But I don't recall any such comment from any of the candidates.

I voted for Obama in 2008.
I was thrilled with the symbol of his election.
He has disappointed me as President.
The blind drive to destroy his presidency and thwart his efforts have an undertone.
I hear the venom among friends and family.
http://loyalopposition.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/03/nobody-likes-to-talk-about-it-but-its-there/?ref=opinion
This ugly strain was crudely evident in the “birthers” and their ridiculous demands that Mr. Obama produce his birth certificate to prove that he was American, and not secretly an African Muslim.
Mr. Obama’s election in 2008 was a triumph of American democracy and tolerance. He overcame incredible odds to become the first president of mixed race, the first brown-skinned president. It’s pathetic that some Republicans are choosing to toss that milestone into the garbage in their blind drive to destroy Mr. Obama’s presidency.

“Race is usually less about facts than historical mythology, which evokes the black bogyman, who saps the money from the whites who earn it. Ever since blacks first arrived on these shores in chains, they have been perceived as lazy and dependent on whites—first as slaves, and then as ‘entitled’ citizens.” —Charles Blow

"ENVY"...REALLY?

2012-01-12T13:28:00.000-05:00

Without Comment: Romney, Lauer, and 'the 1%' - The Atlantic
I have never thought the 99% come at the inequitable income stats out of envy.
I do think we come at the stats out of hopelessness...out of futility...out of concern even for those who are statistically below us in wealth.
What do you think?

QUESTION OF THE DAY

2012-01-12T03:30:00.000-05:00

We say we want leaders who come from the 99%.
Who in the world comes from more of a working-class, non-elite, 99% background than Barry Obama, Joe Biden and Michelle Obama?

EXTREME BLOVIATION

2012-01-11T03:30:00.000-05:00

"Greatest Nation in the History of the Earth"
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/12/mitt_romney_believe_in_america_he_says_the_u_s_is_the_greatest_nation_in_the_history_of_the_earth_.html
What do we know?
1. Civilizations are so complex that it makes no sense to boil them down to a "best rating",
2. From its behavior, America is far less exceptional than we would like to believe.
3.This triumphalism happens when a person fails to see that it stems from the accident of birthplace.

blo·vi·ate (blv-t)

intr.v. blo·vi·at·ed, blo·vi·at·ing, blo·vi·ates Slang

To discourse at length in a pompous or boastful manner:

blovi·ation n.

Bill Maher on American exceptionalism: "Always wavingthe big foam number one finger; we're not number one in most things. We'renumber one in military. We're number one in money. We're number one in fattoddlers, meth labs, and people we send to prison. We're not number one inliteracy, money spent on education. We're not even number one in socialmobility. Social mobility means basically the American dream, the ability ofone generation to do better than the next. We're tenth. That's like Swedencoming in tenth in Swedish meatballs."

OUR UNIQUENESS TAKES ANOTHER HIT

2012-01-10T03:30:00.000-05:00

One of the most widespread myths about tool use is that it is a sign of our unique intelligence...or not!
http://www.npr.org/2011/12/23/143833929/myth-busting-the-truth-about-animals-and-tools?ft=1&f=1007

SIDNEY AWARDS

2012-01-09T03:30:00.000-05:00

The Sidney Awards always whet my reading appetite:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/opinion/brooks-the-sidney-awards-part-i.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
and
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/23/opinion/brooks-the-sidney-awards-part-ii.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

EVERY DAY...SOMETHING NEW!

2012-01-08T03:30:00.000-05:00

Assuming that I possess basic meteorological information, this info has revealed my continuing bout with ignorance:
http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2011/12/kelvin-helmholtz-instability.html

RE-THINKING THE TITLE OF MY NEXT BOOK

2012-01-07T03:30:00.000-05:00

http://eu.than.asia/2011/08/the-xs-daughter/

SUBJECTS FOR CONVERSATION in 2012

2012-01-06T03:30:00.000-05:00

All observations in this article are provocative. As an example, I cite:
8. Too much other social capital. Poor people have very little financial capital. But they have very strong help networks that help them survive. These networks are vital to keeping them off the bottom, but also make it harder to rise--there's a much greater expectation that if you get your hands on some money, you share it; that you will take in needy friends and relatives even if that makes your life much harder, and so forth. (There's some really interesting work on how microfinance actually functions as savings for people who cannot save because their savings will be tapped before they can be used by needy relatives and friends. The EITC seems to work the same way here). The more you have, the more you have to share. This erodes the incentive to get more.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/12/if-i-were-a-poor-black-kid/249996/

NEEDLE...HAYSTACK

2012-01-05T03:30:00.000-05:00

The researchers’ confidence in this result, while fairly strong, does not yet rise to the level at which a definitive discovery is claimed (there’s roughly a chance of a few in a thousand that the data is a statistical fluke, sort of like the chance of getting 8 to 9 heads in a row when you flip a coin

http://worldsciencefestival.com/blog/brian_greene_reacts_to_todays_cern_announcement

Picture of of one small section of the Collider:

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap111218.html

YES! IT IS TIME!

2012-01-04T15:42:00.000-05:00

update: 1-5-2012
In response to President Obama's "what took him so long?" recess appointment of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Board, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell responded thus, according to CNN:

"President Obama, in an unprecedented move, has arrogantly circumvented the American people by 'recess' appointing Richard Cordray as director of the new CFPB," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in a statement.

Let's take this in order:

"Unprecedented move"? There is some technical dispute about when the Congress is and is not in recess. But the only thing "unprecedented" about Obama's use of recess appointments is how rarely he has done it. According to the Congressional Research Service, Bill Clinton made 139 recess appointments in 8 years, and George Bush made 171. According to Wikipedia (only source I immediately found), Obama made 28 in his first three years -- or less than half of Bush's rate, 9+ per year versus 21+.

"Arrogantly circumvented"? At the moment, Obama is the elected president of the United States. The Consumer Financial Protection Board was approved by both houses of Congress and duly signed into law by the president. There is no doubt that Cordray would receive a majority Senate vote in favor of his appointment -- if the nomination were ever allowed to come to a vote. And Obama is the one "arrogantly circumventing" Constitutional processes and the American people? Seriously, this kind of thing need to be called out for what it is: nonsense.

1-4-2012
http://www.theatlantic.com/james-fallows/
President Obama has now used the main tool available to him. He has given Cordray a recess appointment to his CFPB role.

Good.

As James Warren explains about the merits of Cordray's choice and Ezra Klein about the procedural issues, Obama is using the powers available to a president, in the face of minority "nullification," to operate the government and also to make his political case. If Scott Brown in Massachusetts and Republican candidates nationwide want to argue that the (modest) financial reforms enacted after the 2008 meltdown should be repealed -- fine, let them make that case on the stump this year. If they prevail, they can overturn this law and replace it with what they would like. But until and unless that happens, the CFPB is a legimately enacted organ of government and should be allowed to function. It is nice to see Obama responding to the realities of today's divided government and clarifying, for both sides, the choices that voters will make this year.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

2012-01-04T13:10:00.001-05:00

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/01/04/iowa-results-show-romney-s-weakness-even-against-gop-unelectables.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailybeast%2Farticles+%28The+Daily+Beast+-+Latest+Articles%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher
Four years ago, Romney received 25 percent of the vote in the Iowa caucuses. Unencumbered by the need for gainful employment, Romney has been running nonstop ever since, and, along with a pro-Romney super PAC, spent at least $4 million in Iowa in 2012. Yet he garnered—wait for it—25 percent. I'm not a Harvard Business School grad like Mitt; in fact, I've never even laid anyone off, but it seems to me that spending $4 million to gain zero points is a bad return on investment. That is one expensive treadmill. I've seen Astroturf with stronger growth.

FEMINISM

2012-01-04T03:30:00.000-05:00

Remember that word..."feminism"...it continues to be an unfinished mission from my corner of the world.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/13/sheryl-sandberg-ted-talk_n_1145415.html?ref=daily-brief?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=121311&utm_medium=email&utm_content=NewsEntry&utm_term=Daily%20Brief

NEWT

2012-01-03T03:30:00.000-05:00

I have attempted to be respectful of Newt Gingrich's advocates. Belittling his supporters with demeaning comments is not constructive. And yet, careful scholarship does lead to humility rather than arrogance; most problems we face are complex in their composure and imperfect in their solutions. I find myself giving assent to these statements:
http://budiansky.blogspot.com/2011/12/cartoon-professor.html

He is constantly reminding us of his doctorate in history; he routinely claims he understands issues more deeply than anyone else; he has made a career of denouncing or (when he had the authority) eliminating professional expertise that might challenge his own certain pronouncements; and he is a veritable fount of crackpot "big" ideas (mining minerals on the moon, protecting the United States from sci-fi doomsday scenarios, and "fundamentally transforming" everything as a first step to doing anything.
or
Let Peggy Noonan describe Newt:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203413304577086824255350642.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines
Ethically dubious? True. Intelligent and accomplished? True. Has he known breathtaking success and contributed to real reforms in government? Yes. Presided over disasters? Absolutely. Can he lead? Yes. Is he erratic and unreliable as a leader? Yes. Egomaniacal? True. Original and focused, harebrained and impulsive—all true.

PRAISE AT THE NEW YEAR

2012-01-02T10:45:00.001-05:00

...excerpt from a poem:
praise the eminent sun
for letting us orbs buzz around it
like younger brothers.
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/?refid=3

POEM FOR THE NEW YEAR

2012-01-02T03:30:00.000-05:00

The Layers

Stanley Kunitz

Ihave walked through many lives,
someof them my own,
andI am not who I was,
thoughsome principle of being
abides,from which I struggle
notto stray.
WhenI look behind,
asI am compelled to look
beforeI can gather strength
toproceed on my journey,
Isee the milestones dwindling
towardthe horizon
andthe slow fires trailing
fromthe abandoned campsites,
overwhich scavenger angels
wheelon heavy wings.
Oh,I have made myself a tribe
outof my true affections,
andmy tribe is scattered!
Howshall the heart be reconciled
toits feast of losses?
Ina rising wind
themanic dust of my friends,
thosewho fell along the way,
bitterlystings my face.
YetI turn, I turn,
exultingsomewhat,
withmy will intact to go
whereverI need to go,
andevery stone on the road
preciousto me.
In my darkest night,
whenthe moon was covered
andI roamed through wreckage,
animbus-clouded voice
directedme:
"Livein the layers,
noton the litter."
ThoughI lack the art
todecipher it,
nodoubt the next chapter
inmy book of transformations
isalready written.
Iam not done with my changes.

.

(Kunitz once wrote: ''The imagination is a deep-sea diver thatrakes the bottom of the poet's mind and dredges up sleeping images. . . If wego deep enough, we may discover the secret place where our key images have beenstored since childhood.'' He believes poems exist before you know them: ''Evenbefore it is ready to change into language, a poem may begin to assert itsburied life in the mind with wordless surges of rhythm and counterrhythm.'' )

STORY FOR THE NEW YEAR

2012-01-01T03:30:00.001-05:00

The Cab Ride
(Anon)
I arrived at the address and honked the horn.
After waiting a few minutes I walked to the door
and knocked.. 'Just a minute', answered a
frail, elderly voice. I could hear something
being dragged across the floor.

After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in
her 90's stood before me. She was wearing a
print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned
on it, like somebody out of a 1940's movie.

By her side was a small nylon suitcase.
The apartment looked as if no one had lived in
it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets.

There were no clocks on the walls,
no knickknacks or utensils on the counters.
In the corner was a cardboard box filled
with photos and glassware.

'Would you carry my bag out to the car?' she said. I took
the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman.

She took my arm and we walked
slowly toward the curb.
She kept thanking me for my kindness. 'It's nothing', I
told her.. 'I just try to treat my passengers the way I
would want my mother to be treated.'

'Oh, you're such a good boy, she said.
When we got in the cab, she gave me an address
and then asked, 'Could you drive through downtown?'

'It's not the shortest way,' I answered quickly..
'Oh, I don't mind,' she said. 'I'm in no hurry.
I'm on my way to a hospice.

I looked in the rear-view mirror.
Her eyes were glistening. 'I don't have
any family left,' she continued in a soft
voice.. 'The doctor says I don't have very long.'
I quietly reached over and shut off the meter.

'What route would you like me to take?' I asked.

For the next two hours, we drove through the city.
She showed me the building where she had once
worked as an elevator operator.
We drove through the neighborhood where she
and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds
She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse
that had once been a ballroom where she
had gone dancing as a girl.
Sometimes she'd ask me to slow
in front of a particular building or corner and
would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.

As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she
suddenly said, 'I'm tired. Let's go now'.

We drove in silence to the address she had given me.
It was a low building, like a small convalescent home,
with a driveway that passed under a portico.
Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up.
They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move.
They must have been expecting her.
I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to
the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair.
'How much do I owe you?' She asked, reaching into her purse.
'Nothing,' I said.
'You have to make a living,' she answered.
'There are other passengers,' I responded.

Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug.
She held onto me tightly.
'You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,'
She said. 'Thank you.'
I squeezed her hand, and then walked into the dim
morning light.. Behind me, a door shut.
It was the sound of the closing of a life..

I didn't pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove
aimlessly lost in thought. For the rest of that day,
I could hardly talk. What if that woman had
gotten an angry driver, or one who was impatient
to end his shift?
What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked
once, then driven away?
On a quick review, I don't think that I have done anything
more important in my life.
We're conditioned to think that our lives revolve
around great moments.
But great moments often catch us unaware-beautifully
wrapped in what others may consider a small one.

PEOPLE MAY NOT REMEMBER EXACTLY
WHAT YOU DID, OR WHAT YOU SAID ~BUT~THEY WILL
ALWAYS REMEMBER HOW YOU MADE THEM FEEL.

Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we
are here we might as well dance.

2012 NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION

2012-01-01T03:30:00.000-05:00

NEW YEARS RESOLUTION
My Patron Saint:Edwin Arlington Robinson was born in Head Tide, Maine (1869). He is remembered for a few short poems, which he said were "pickled in anthological brine," including "Richard Cory," "Miniver Cheevy," and "Mr. Flood's Party."But somehow, his poetry made it into the hands of Theodore Roosevelt, who became a big fan. He got Robinson a job at a Customs House to help him earn a living while he wrote. All he had to do was show up at his desk, read the morning newspaper, and leave it on his chair to prove he had been there.

One of the supreme joys of retirement is that….All I have to do is show up at my computer, read the morning papers, blogs, rants, ruminations, poems,E-mail, and fb...then write my responses to prove that I have been there.

"Essays in Idleness," was written in the 1300s by a Buddhist monk named Kenko.
“What a strange, demented feeling it gives me when I realize I have spent whole days before this inkstone, with nothing better to do, jotting down at random whatever nonsensical thoughts have entered my head.”
But there is a deep mystery in Kenko's sentence. "Nothing better to do" can be understood to mean not that one has nothing good to do but that this is the very best thing.
How much do you value your free time? Do you use it to rest and recover or do you use it to do work that, because it's done in your own time -- in time you own --is transformed into pleasure?”
and finally
…Old man sitting on a park bench in the sun. Some would say…”Poor old man doing nothing.”
Others of us know of another possibility…
”He is very busy
sitting in the sun
being something
and blinded by insight.”

I will continue showing up at my computer every morning because of my retirement time. I am using that time for work that, because it's done in my own time--in time that I own--is transformed into pleasure. I have nothing better to do... meaning, not that I have nothing good to do, but that this is the very best thing, "jotting down at random whatever nonsensical thoughts have entered my head" and recording those "blinding insights."

AT THE YEAR'S END

2011-12-31T04:00:00.000-05:00

...with gratitude and affection
for this shared mystery
of being human
on this dark little planet,
on one of the slender,
gracefully swirling arms
of one of the smaller galaxies.

HEADLINE NEWS 12-31-11

2011-12-31T03:30:00.001-05:00

After the horrors of WW II, we joined in the chorus of "Never Again." Now after Korea, Viet Nam, and other motivations to cry "Never Again," we add Iraq to the bill of particulars that indict us.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/1210/Iraq-after-the-US-Will-it-survive-video
Indeed, Iraq's fragile social fabric has been shredded by the kinds of bombings, killings, torture, and upheavals that afflicted so many like the Khafaji family – whether at the hands of Sunni extremists like Al Qaeda, Shiite militias, or US and Iraqi forces. While the US lost more than 4,500 soldiers – and spent nearly $1 trillion – the human toll on the Iraqi side is virtually unquantifiable and unimaginable, with estimates of the number of people who perished in the years of insurgency and sectarian civil war reaching into the hundreds of thousands.

ZEN STORIES

2011-12-31T03:30:00.000-05:00

As the year winds down, I offer 10 Buddhist stories:
http://www.awakeblogger.com/2008/09/the-10-very-best-zen-stories/

HE HAS A GOOD HEAD ON HIS SHOULDERS

2011-12-30T03:30:00.000-05:00

LETTER TO FORMER STUDENTS

2011-12-29T10:17:00.002-05:00

My Greetings to all,
For those of you who walked with me through the “Great Books” class, I want to provide this update. (Thanks to you, that class in each iteration was always a cherished experience for me.)
This year, Stephen Greenblatt authored a book entitled “Swerve.”
http://www.amazon.com/Swerve-How-World-Became-Modern/dp/0393064476/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323116525&sr=1-1
I have just completed a reading of this fascinating story, tracing the survival of “On the Nature of Things” by Lucretius. Here, enters our class and the“Great Books of the Western World.” In Volume 12, we gave our attention to this seminal work:
"Great Books of the Western World" Volume 12
"On the Nature of Things" by Lucretius
(My set of the Great Books is under the custody of my eldest granddaughter who is a college senior. She was selected for a program that centers on the Great Books…her grandfather said with pride.)
In addition, I am providing a link to a recent article by Greenblatt in “The New Yorker” that describes his discovery and the story of the ancient discovery.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/08/08/110808fa_fact_greenblatt
My best to each of you and thanks for the memories,

Bill Rogers

LANDING ON YOUR FEET

2011-12-29T03:30:00.000-05:00

YES

2011-12-28T03:30:00.000-05:00

Is there only one issue?
Let's see who is serious about representing the people.
Campaign finance doesn't need reform...it should be eliminated.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-van-zandt/democracy-in-america_b_1139463.html

THE FIRE DEPARTMENT REFUSES TO HELP

2011-12-27T12:46:00.000-05:00

When reflecting on our 2011 leaders in the federal government, Arianna has a great image:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/2011-looking-back_b_1170069.html?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=122711&utm_medium=email&utm_content=FeatureTitle&utm_term=Daily%20Brief
Like a terrible reality show, each week brought some fresh, completely made-up five-alarm crisis. And the press would largely follow suit, breathlessly focusing its attention on Washington for the latest make-or-break negotiations. And then would come the front-page breakthrough deal that would essentially maintain the status quo -- or eke out a small victory one way or the other. Remember the debt ceiling apocalypse? The one that basically kept the status quo? And last week we had the critical negotiations on the payroll tax deal that have been front-page news for weeks. The result: a continuation of the status quo. For two months. Then we get to do it again. And again. And again.
It's like local news doing a breaking news live shot announcing that the fire department has decided not to set fire to a house after all. Aren't they supposed to be in the business of helping? Why should we be grateful each time we narrowly avert having our economy further destroyed by our leaders? Shouldn't we expect more than a steadily declining status quo?

BAD GOVERNANCE

2011-12-27T03:30:00.000-05:00

This chart reveals the "gridlock" or "nullification" that plagues the US Senate.

THE TRIUMPH OF THE MASS TRANSIT

2011-12-26T17:44:00.002-05:00

Put me down as a new cheer leader for the bus/light rail forms of mass transportation among/within major southeastern US cities. Today , on December 26, my wife delivered me to the "kiss and ride" section of the Atlanta, GA "marta" station at 8:45 am; "marta" delivered me to the "Civic Center" station in Atlanta, GA at 9:15 am; at 10 am, the "megabus" picked me up at the "Civic Center" station for a 4-hour non-stop ride to the "Transportation Center" in Uptown Charlotte, NC at 1:50 p.m; the "Charlotte Area Transportation System" (CATS) picked me up at 2 pm in the "Transportation Center" and delivered me to my car within 1/2 mile of my home at 3:05 pm. (my total transportation cost: $10.00)

A CURMUDGEON VIEW OF HOLIDAYS

2011-12-26T03:30:00.000-05:00

DECEMBER 25 GREETINGS

2011-12-25T03:30:00.000-05:00

and may whatever holds you up stay forever beneath you,

and may the robin find many a worm, and our cruelties abate,

and may you be well and happy and full of curiosity,

and may you sing.

HARK!

2011-12-24T03:30:00.002-05:00

(from Writer's Almanac)December
by Gary Johnson

A little girl is singing for the faithful to come ye
Joyful and triumphant, a song she loves,
And also the partridge in a pear tree
And the golden rings and the turtle doves.
In the dark streets, red lights and green and blue
Where the faithful live, some joyful, some troubled,
Enduring the cold and also the flu,
Taking the garbage out and keeping the sidewalk shoveled.
Not much triumph going on here—and yet
There is much we do not understand.
And my hopes and fears are met
In this small singer holding onto my hand.
Onward we go, faithfully, into the dark
And are there angels hovering overhead? Hark!
"December" by Gary Johnson

THE VIBRATIONS OF THE SEASON

2011-12-24T03:30:00.001-05:00

For more than 10 years, the Charlotte airport operations reps have invited the "Gaston Chord Weavers" (my Barbershop Chorus) to stroll the concourses providing Christmas/Holiday music for travelers and airline employees. Annually, we provide the music on Friday before Christmas. So... last night:

When you think about it…
It is preordained for a warming response.
In the midst of swarming families and lonely adults,
Waiting for delayed flights,
Agonizing over the threat of missed connections,
Trudging (others scampering) from one flight to another…what
Do you expect to encounter?

Nameless faces or
Sixteen grandfathers singing, “Hark the Herald Angels Sing?”
Distracted stares or
Mothers and children singing along, “Jingle Bells?”
Weary bodies or
Airport employees whispering, “Thanks, I needed that?”
Herding acquiescence or
Cell phones lifted for others in distant locations to hear and see.

There must be always remaining
In Christmastide some place for singing.
Some place where you least expect it.
Some interruption of greed and chaos,
Some drab and commonplace area of life
That glows in one bright flash
Of nostalgia and meaning…then passes.

Despite the complications of family life,
Despite wars and rumors of wars,
Despite the harsh discords we face,
Life is savored and renewed
By singing in a community that will only exist
For that one transcendent moment…
When we are stopped in our tracks by the vibrations of music.

FOR THE REST OF US!!

2011-12-23T03:30:00.000-05:00

Time to air our grievances and engage in feats of strength!!

Festivus is a secular holiday celebrated on December 23. It was created by writer Dan O'Keefe and introduced into popular culture by his son Daniel, a screenwriter for the TV show Seinfeld, as part of a comical storyline on the show. The holiday's celebration, as shown on Seinfeld, includes an unadorned aluminum "Festivus pole", practices such as the "Airing of Grievances" and "Feats of Strength," and the labelling of easily explainable events as "Festivus miracles".

Celebrants of the holiday sometimes refer to it as "Festivus for the rest of us," a saying taken from the O'Keefe family traditions and popularized in the Seinfeld episode to describe Festivus as "another way" to celebrate the holiday season without participating in its pressures and commercialism.
Video summary of the roots of Festivus:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dS7-jcsB_WQ

ANALEMMA

2011-12-22T03:30:00.000-05:00

Winter Solstice rituals
and
Winter Solstice science
fascinate me.
This amazing composite of the Sun's transit over the course of a year should enlighten your observance of Winter Solstice...which is this very day...22 December 2011.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap091220.html

And did you notice the shape of the symbol for infinity ∞ ? (thanks Cyd)

THIRTY THOUSAND YEAR RITUAL

2011-12-22T02:30:00.000-05:00

Today, I will observe the Winter Solstice by:

lighting an outdoor fire just as our ancient ancestors did to call the sun to begin its migration back to a higher arc in our sky;
observing the shadows that the sun will cast on the wall of our home at precisely 1:08 PM. (just as I have marked the shadows for 8 consecutive Winter Solstice days);
listening to a recording of the Winter Solstice concert from The Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

via todays Writer's Almanac:
In the northern hemisphere, today is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year and the longest night. It's officially the first day of winter and one of the oldest known holidays in human history. Anthropologists believe that solstice celebrations go back at least 30,000 years, before humans even began farming on a large scale. Many of the most ancient stone structures made by human beings were designed to pinpoint the precise date of the solstice. The stone circles of Stonehenge were arranged to receive the first rays of midwinter sun.

James Taylor and YoYo Ma offer the promise of Winter Solstice, "Here Comes the Sun"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbMCjuHsT7A

YOU CAN WEAR YOUR YARMULKE...

2011-12-21T10:00:00.000-05:00

As the civilrights movement swept the nation in the decade of the 1960’s, belatedly it cameto the First Baptist Church of Birmingham Alabama in 1970.
The church conference began at6:45 p.m. on Wednesday, August 19, 1970 and concluded at 2:30 a.m. on Thursday.On Sunday, the previous May 17, a black woman had indicated an interest injoining the First Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. She and her childrenhad participated in the ministries of that congregation because they lived twoblocks from the church building.

In the high drama of that heated summer, the leaders of the congregationattempted to find a way to avoid a crisis and open the doors of membership toracial minorities for the first time. The forces for inclusiveness lost the vote inFirst Baptist Church Birmingham that summer. As the losing side, they beganforming a separate congregation. They were an isolated minority in their denominationaltradition; they were shunned by other Christian denominations; they werelabeled as political enemies and social liberals; they had a black familywithin their membership. So they were profoundly grateful to receive aninvitation to share worship space in a Jewish synagogue...a religious centerfor people who have centuries of experience with minority status, shunning, andsocial labeling .

As a result, when I was ordainedas a minister by my home congregation in June of 1971, the ordination took placein a Jewish synagogue with a Rabbi participating!

Temple Beth-El, Birmingham Alabama

Consequently, every year atHanukkah, I have reprised the tune…

”You can wear your yarmulke

When you go to Hanukkah!”

TIS THE SEASON TO BE JOLLY

2011-12-21T09:06:00.000-05:00

Fa-la-la-la-la...la-la-la-la!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH8FvERQHtM

FIRST DAY OF WINTER

2011-12-21T03:00:00.000-05:00

Heads Up!
Tomorrow!
The December solstice will occur at 05:30 (or 5:30am) Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) on December 22, 2011. It is also known as the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere and the summer solstice in the southern hemisphere due to the seasonal differences.
The date varies from December 20 to December 23 depending on the year in the Gregorian calendar.

FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS BEGINS

2011-12-20T11:37:00.001-05:00

Happy Hanukkah!
http://www.chabad.org/holidays/chanukah/article_cdo/aid/102911/jewish/Chanukah-in-a-Nutshell.htm

It is said that every Festival of the Jews may be summarized:
"They tried to kill us.
We survived.
Let's eat!"

THE HERMANATOR

2011-12-19T03:30:00.000-05:00

The view going up is different from the view going down.

http://www.thenation.com/article/165032/whats-race-got-do-herman-cain?rel=emailNation
It’s certainly significant that electoral racism is on the decline. In 1958, 53 percent of voters said they would not vote for a well-qualified black candidate for president; in 1984 it was 16 percent; by 2003 it was 6 percent; now it stands at 3 percent.
Indeed, polls show that Americans feel more comfortable about a black person leading the country than about one marrying a white person. So Cain may have had a point about electoral politics when he said, “I don’t have a lot of patience for people who want to blame racism on the fact that some people don’t make it in America,” or that “I don’t believe racism in this country today holds anybody back in a big way.” The trouble is that these statements don’t make sense for almost any other aspect of life in America, from employment to incarceration and from housing to poverty.
So much for Cain’s rise. On the way down, however, the framing changed. As allegations of sexual harassment came flooding in, he became one of those people for whom he has no patience. Asked by Fox News if he thought the attacks on him were racially motivated, Cain said, “I believe the answer is yes, but we do not have any evidence to support it…. We believe there are some people who are Democrats, liberals, who do not want to see me win the nomination.”
Having dismissed the very notion of collective racial disadvantage, he began to invoke a sense of his specific racial victimhood. Not just as a black man—but as a black Republican. And, like Clarence Thomas before him, Cain and his supporters leveraged this rarefied sense of victimhood not against racism as such but women in general and feminism in particular. Coulter decried “liberal women using laws to protect blacks in order to attack conservative blacks with these vicious, outrageous charges.”

WISDOM OF WINTER

2011-12-18T14:58:00.000-05:00

Because of the satisfaction I found in my Unitarian Universalist gathering today, I want to provide a summary of that experience.
We were seated in the round and at the center were the barren tree limbs and icicles of winter.
Our theme was "Wisdom of Winter." On the cover of our printed service, a drawing of a graceful owl was presented.
"Calling the Spirits of the Directions and Lighting of the Spirit Candle" invited everyone to face to the east, south, west, and north in turn while we called those Spirits on the wind to join us from those points on the compass. Large candles were lit in each direction.
Our minister then invited the children to walk with her in the outer circle as she read the story, "Owl Moon." Along the walls were large parchment reproductions of the pictures found in that book.
(Earlier an owl and her handler from a nearby Raptor Center had been introduced. They sat to one side as the service continued)
A "Guided Meditation" was then read to encourage us to imagine walking through a cold winter forest with snow at night, and the light of a full moon guiding us. Accompanying the meditation, a musical sound track was played, interspersed by the hooting of an owl. To our collective astonishment, the owl in our midst began responding with her own call to the hoot on the sound track! It was a holy moment!
"Releasing the Spirits of the Directions" called us once again to rise and face to the east, south, west and north in turn while we released those Spirits on the wind. The four large candles were extinguished.

For more than 40 years, I have found enormous significance in observing the summer and winter solstice and the vernal and autumnal equinox. In most civilizations, we have evidence that these seasonal markers predate and presage religious festivals and holy days. Solstice events have been observed for more than 30,000 years.
Upon learning of my new-found identity as a Unitarian Universalist, one of my teaching colleagues from other chapters of life said to me, "Bill...you are home!" And my reply, "Yes...I am!

SUBTEXT TO POLITICAL SEASON

2011-12-18T11:00:00.000-05:00

White people don't enjoy the kind of luxuries that their great grandparents did, particularly the luxury of knowing that there is one class of people that will always have a subordinate role.

THE WRITER WHO BECAME A POLITICIAN

2011-12-18T10:08:00.000-05:00

One of the heroes of my generation has died:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/18/us-czech-havel-idUSTRE7BH08W20111218

and

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/12/19/john-avlon-vaclav-havel-s-heroic-politics-of-truth-and-responsibility.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailybeast%2Farticles+%28The+Daily+Beast+-+Latest+Articles%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher
Havel was a hero who shrugged off the title, understandably uncomfortable with the assumptions of stony perfection. But in the long winter that followed the Prague Spring, he did more than any other Czech dissident to keep hope alive behind the Iron Curtain by persistently defying the Soviet-backed state. He refused to flee to the West when he had the chance, preferring to stay and create a countercultural resistance to the corrosive conformity of communism.

ABOUT TO SPLIT

2011-12-17T03:30:00.000-05:00

From "Writer's Almanac"
http://www.elabs7.com/functions/message_view.html?mid=1385213&mlid=499&siteid=20130&uid=689552c9ba
Various of Horace's Odes have been translated by Ben Jonson, John Milton, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Robert Lowell, and even John Quincy Adams.
One of the most famous phrases popularized by Horace is carpe diem, sometimes translated as "seize the day." Carpe diem comes from Horace's Ode I-XI, the 11 ode in his first book.
Heather McHugh translated one ode:
"Get wise. Get wine, and one good filter for it.
Cut that high hope down to size, and pour it
into something fit for men. Think less
of more tomorrows, more of this
one second, endlessly unique: it's
jealous, even as we speak, and it's
about to split again ..."

Christopher Hitchens 1949-2011

2011-12-16T12:42:00.000-05:00

update 17 December 2011:

One of his regular debate-partners:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2011/12/christopher_hitchens_death_rabbi_david_wolpe_on_what_it_was_like_to_debate_hitchens_.html

Christopher Hitchens was that rarest of polemicists—even his disgust had delight. As he pronounced anathemas on you and your kind, the smile peeked out beneath the sneer. His bearing was like Muhammad Ali in the early days: gleeful contempt for the opponent was sort of a game—a high-stakes game, but a game nonetheless. Apart from his occasional abrupt rudeness to a questioner he considered bumptious or untutored, Hitchens threw himself into combat with infectious gusto. Arguing with him did not involve meeting the punch you knew he would throw, but the hopeless task of combating the unexpected uppercut, the stinging apercu offered in his British baritone. Hitchens evoked laughter the way master comedians do, even before speaking. His throat clearing was like the unbuttoning of a stripper’s overcoat, promising delights to come.

Lovely tribute by Ian McEwan
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/opinion/christopher-hitchens-consummate-writer-brilliant-friend.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

...in praise of contrarians:
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/christopher-hitchens/graydon-201112

He was a man of insatiable appetites—for cigarettes, for scotch, for company, for great writing, and, above all, for conversation. That he had an output to equal what he took in was the miracle in the man. You’d be hard-pressed to find a writer who could match the volume of exquisitely crafted columns, essays, articles, and books he produced over the past four decades. He wrote often—constantly, in fact, and right up to the end—and he wrote fast; frequently without the benefit of a second draft or even corrections.

Christopher Hitchens’s most valuable asset was his scathing wit. From his famous digs at religion to his humiliating takedown of Sarah Palin—and even some snippy comments aimed at cats—read the brilliant writer’s most incendiary jabs.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/12/16/christopher-hitchens-s-best-zingers-from-sarah-palin-to-barack-obama.html

ON RELIGION

“ To ‘choose’ dogma and faith over doubt and experience is to throw out the ripening vintage and to reach greedily for the Kool-Aid.”

—God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, 2007

ON SARAH PALIN

“She's got no charisma of any kind [but] I can imagine her being mildly useful to a low-rank porn director.”

—The Leonard Lopate Show, June 2010

ON HYPOCRITES

“Nothing optional—from homosexuality to adultery—is ever made punishable unless those who do the prohibiting (and exact the fierce punishment) have a repressed desire to participate.”

—God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, 2007

ON WOMEN

“Why are women, who have the whole male world at their mercy, not funny?”

—Vanity Fair, 2007

ON BARACK OBAMA

“The political rhetoric of Obamaism, alas, is even more bloviating at times than Camelot was.”

—Slate, 2009

ON CATS & DOGS

“Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are god.”

—The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Non-Believer, 2007

ON GEORGE W. BUSH

“[George W. Bush] is lucky to be governor of Texas. He is unusually incurious, abnormally unintelligent, amazingly inarticulate, fantastically uncultured, extraordinarily uneducated, and apparently quite proud of all these things.”

—Hardball with Chris Matthews, 2000

ON THE AMERICAN LEFT

“One of the many problems with the American left, and indeed of the American left, has been its image and self-image as something rather too solemn, mirthless, herbivorous, dull, monochrome, righteous, and boring.”

—Frontpagemag.com, 2004

ON NEWSPAPERS

“Only the aspirants for president are fool enough to believe what they read in the newspapers.”

—C-SPAN, March 1988

ON MICHAEL MOORE

“The laugh here is on the polished, sophisticated Europeans. They think Americans are fat, vulgar, greedy, stupid, ambitious, and ignorant and so on. And they’ve taken as their own, as their representative American, someone who actually embodies all of those qualities,”

—MSNBC’s Scarborough Country, May 2004

ON RACE IN AMERICA

“In this country, it seems that you can always get an argument going about ‘race’ as long as it is guaranteed to be phony, but never when it is real.”

—Slate, January 2008

ON JERRY FALWELL

“If [Falwell] had been given an enema, he could have been buried in a matchbox.”

—CSPAN, April 2009

TEXAS HOMES

2011-12-16T03:30:00.000-05:00

Fuller

Willow Oak

Tucson Trail

WAR ON CHRISTMAS

2011-12-15T03:30:00.000-05:00

In yet another masterpiece of irony that would make Mark Twain smile and puff on his cigar:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2011/12/late-night-jon-stewart-officially-declares-war-on-christmas.html
"I wish you and your family in this season, a happy and heartfelt end of the fiscal fourth quarter."

THIS DAY

2011-12-14T10:15:00.000-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj2ofrX7jAk

OF SQUIRRELS AND PEOPLE

2011-12-14T09:20:00.002-05:00

I find this TED to be both informative and provocative.
Who/What stands at the gate of my information filter?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOE1HFEL8XA&feature=share

FATHER SPEAKS

2011-12-14T03:30:00.000-05:00

Ruth Marcus is spot on as she focuses on Romney's patriarchal demeanor:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/romney-and-gingrichs-words-reveal-their-true-selves/2011/12/06/gIQAwVKpaO_story.html
“One,” Romney began, in the bulleted manner of a man who loves his PowerPoint — although he never actually made it to two. “We’re going to have to be better informed about my views on issues,” he continued, his face fixed in a tight smile.
We’re going to have to be better informed?
There is, in politics, an appropriate, energizing, even uplifting use of the first-person plural. This is the “we” as in “we Americans,” pulling together, part of a greater whole. That is not Romney’s “we.” Romney’s is not even the royal we, as in “we are not amused,” which would be bad enough.
It is the patronizing, faux “we” of the middle school principal who has just found the boys scribbling graffiti on the wall and wants to know what we are going to do about it — before he calls our parents.
At that moment of the Baier interview, you — is that we? — could see the father, church leader, investment banker, politician unaccustomed to being challenged and none too pleased with it. Indeed, according to Baier, after Romney returned to his holding room, he came back to tell Baier that the questioning was “uncalled for.”

YOU GOTTA KNOW THE TERRITORY

2011-12-13T13:58:00.000-05:00

"Happy Holidays" from Governor Perry

Apparently all agonizing over the "war on Christmas" ends when your web presence needs to appeal to donors of different faiths.

"Fierce Urgency" MODERATION

2011-12-13T12:44:00.000-05:00

...more symptoms of concern that I share about Obama:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/on-obama-teddy-roosevelt-_b_1144787.html?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=121311&utm_medium=email&utm_content=FeatureTitle&utm_term=Daily%20Brief
In his 60 Minutes interview, in answer to a question about whether he over-promised during the campaign, the president replied:

I didn't overpromise. And I didn't underestimate how tough this was gonna be. I always believed that this was a long-term project... That reversing a culture here in Washington, dominated by special interests... it was gonna take more than a year. It was gonna take more than two years. It was gonna take more than one term. Probably takes more than one president.

More than one president? During the campaign, Obama was fond of quoting Martin Luther King Jr.'s "the fierce urgency of now." But now we're supposed to wait for the fierce urgency of two or three more presidents?

WHEN THEM BECOMES US

2011-12-13T03:30:00.000-05:00

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2011/11/citizen_detainment_why_is_the_senate_so_determined_to_allow_the_u_s_military_to_arrest_and_detain_americans_.html

One of the two Republican senators to vote for the Udall Amendment yesterday was Sen. Rand Paul, who quoted Thomas Jefferson: “The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become instruments of tyranny at home.” No. Truer. Words. At this moment in America we seem to be so fond of dividing Americans into us and them that we have created all sorts of intriguing new legal double standards for the thems. Don’t think for a minute that these new powers will be used only against suspected terrorists. We already know that suspected illegal immigrants, suspected environmental activists, and suspected protesters have very different legal rights—which is to say, far more limited rights—than anyone else. And as Benjamin Wallace Wells detailed last August, the landmark anti-terror legislation known as the Patriot Act has, in the 10 years since its passage, been used in 1,618 drug cases and 15 terrorism cases. You’d never know it from watching the GOP hopefuls joyfully demonize women, immigrants, the poor, the prisoners, OWS protesters, and union members, but at some point, them always becomes us.

FLIGHT OF THE ANGEL

2011-12-12T19:39:00.003-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVCVxNJirNQ&feature=player_embedded#!

VOTING RIGHTS

2011-12-12T11:40:00.003-05:00

In the North Carolina legislature, we are struggling against these forces.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/165077/koch-brothers-alec-and-savage-assault-democracy

THE BRAIN BASED APPROACH?

2011-12-12T03:30:00.000-05:00

These provocative drawings by Leif Parsons illustrate an article in a recent edition of the NYT. Because of my recent medical experiences with neuro-science, I am fascinated with the questions, Am I my brain...Is my brain me?
What is/are the source(s) of my thoughts...perceptions...consciousness?
Am I dependent on being normally-embodied, and socially-situated to have thoughts...perceptions...consciousness?
Is there a distinction between being my brain and being a living human being?

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/art-and-the-limits-of-neuroscience/?ref=opinion

Leif Parsons

Leif Parsons

Leif Parsons

THE BLOVIATOR

2011-12-11T03:30:00.000-05:00

My opinion: Newt Gingrich is not the intelligent person he thinks he is.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/opinion/sunday/bruni-and-now-professor-gingrich.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Maybe his flamboyant knowledge-flaunting and ceaseless crowing are indeed liabilities, but ones that Republican voters forgive him as they stand at the 2012 salad bar, famished for a protein other than Mitt Romney and forced to choose from what’s there. The baby shrimp absent, the chicken strips missing, they settle for legumes. Gingrich is their bloviating garbanzo bean. Onto the romaine he goes.

MURMURATION OF STARLINGS

2011-12-10T03:30:00.000-05:00

There are no adequate words to describe this...absolutely lovely:
http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2011/12/murmuration-from-sophie-windsor-clive.html

...from the comments:
"I once attended a workshop by the dancer Jennifer Monson, who in an open space in a museum taught about 30 people how to flock like birds. We began by heading in a single direction, and then when someone decided to shift direction, how easy it was for the people around him or her to shift also, with everyone eventually following. We did this for about ten minutes, with no accidents! Here's a website of Monson's--she does a lot of educational presentation like this, besides her own performances, many of which involve migratory bird travels:"

http://ilandsymposium.wordpress.com/bird-brain-educational-resource-guide/

GRANDMOTHER CLOCK

2011-12-08T03:30:00.000-05:00

My Granny died on December 8, 1979. So, this is written in her memory on the Anniversary of her death. In her memory, the clock I bought with the money she left me continues to chime in my home. I have composed this version of “My Grandfather’s Clock” to be sung on every anniversary of her death.

Here is the tune:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUfLtPbQW8Q

Here is my version in her memory:

MY GRANDMOTHER CLOCK
My Grandmother’s clock was too tall for the shelf
So its stood thirty years on the floor
It was bought in the year, six months after she died
It has since been my treasure and pride
Thirty years without slumberingTic toc tic toc
My life's seconds numberingTic toc tic toc
Will it stop short, never to go again
When this Grandson dies?

Below are the original lyrics:
MY GRANDFATHER CLOCKMy grandfather's clock
Was too large for the shelf,
So it stood ninety years on the floor;
It was taller by half
Than the old man himself,
Though it weighed not a pennyweight more.
It was bought on the morn
Of the day that he was born,
It was always his treasure and pride;
But it stopped short
Never to go again,
When the old man died.
Ninety years without slumbering,Tick, tock, tick, tock,
His life seconds numbering,Tick, tock, tick, tock,
It stopped short
Never to go again,
When the old man died.

In watching its pendulum swing to and fro
Many hours he had spent when a boy
And through childhood and manhood, the clock seemed to know
And to share both his grief and his joy
For it struck 24 when he entered at the door
With a blooming and beautiful bride,
But it stopped, short, never to go again
When the old man died

CHORUS

My grandfather said that of those he could hire
Not a servant so faithful he'd found,
For it kept perfect time and it had one desire
At the close of each day to be wound
At it kept to its place, not a frown upon its face
At its hands never hung by its side
But it stopped, short, never to go again
When the old man died

CHORUS

It rang an alarm in the still of the night,
An alarm that for years had been dumb
And we knew that his spirit was pluming for flight
That his hour of departure had come
Still the clock kept the time with a soft and muffled chime
As we silently stood by his side
But it stopped, short, never to go again
When the old man died.
Written by Henry Clay Work

And finally, one other Youtube version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akFrzn8SVGc

Melissa made a calligraphy version of this favored quote about chiming clocks. I found the quote in the writing of George Will.

God made chiming clocks to:
allow for correct thoughts about the
nature and destiny of persons
and
to remind that suns, moons,
civilizations
and persons cannot
be rewound.

IN MEMORIAM-JACK MCEWEN

2011-12-07T03:30:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I learned of the death of my predecessor in the Dean's office at SBTS. In 1984, I followed Dan Aleshire (the Interim Dean) who had followed Jack McEwen.

Oft in the Stilly Night

Oft in the stilly night
Ere slumber's chain has bound me,
Fond Memory brings the light
Of other days around me;
The smiles, the tears,
Of other years,
The words of love then spoken;
The eyes that shone,
Now dimmed and gone,
The cheerful hearts now broken!
Thus in the stilly night
Ere Slumber's chain has bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light
Of other days around me.

When I remember all
The friends so linked together,
I've seen around me fall
Like leaves in wintry weather:
I feel like one
Who treads alone
Some banquet-hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garland's dead,
And all but he departed!

Thus in the stilly night
Ere slumber's chain has bound me,
Fond Memory brings the light
Of other days around me.

Thomas Moore

QUOTE OF THE DAY

2011-12-06T12:34:00.001-05:00

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-oped-1206-parker-20111206,0,2125892.column
Mr. Squeaky [Romney] not only has no skeletons in the closet; he has no closets.

STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS

2011-12-06T03:30:00.000-05:00

The phrase is conventionally attributed to Sir Isaac Newton in a letter to Robert Hooke in 1676 -

"What Descartes did was a good step. You have added much several ways, and especially in taking the colours of thin plates into philosophical consideration. If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants."

- but has been traced back to Bernard of Chartres; John of Salisbury wrote in the 12th century:

"Bernard of Chartres used to say that we are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any sharpness of sight on our part, or any physical distinction, but because we are carried high and raised up by their giant size."
Wikipedia.

LEAN TOWARD RISKS

2011-12-05T03:30:00.000-05:00

Recently, I responded to NYT columnist David Brook invitation for over 70 types to give a "Life Report." Here is Brooks' summary of his collection.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/29/opinion/brooks-the-life-reports-ii.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

MERCHANDISING

2011-12-04T03:30:00.000-05:00

For more than thirty years, I witnessed "intellectual insularity." It is summarized by the accusatory statement, "We have evidence that you are telling students things they never heard before!"
http://www.thenation.com/article/164761/next-stop-gop-crazy-train-newtsville
Speaking of these Tea Party–inspired “candidates,” reformed right-winger David Frum writes that a “political movement that never took governing seriously was exploited by a succession of political entrepreneurs uninterested in governing—but all too interested in merchandising. Much as viewers tune in to American Idol to laugh at the inept, borderline dysfunctional early auditions, these tea-party champions provide a ghoulish type of news entertainment each time they reveal that they know nothing about public affairs and have never attempted to learn.”

SYMPTOMATIC PROBLEM

2011-12-03T03:30:00.000-05:00

"Too deferential" is the operative symptom.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/11/28/why-can-t-obama-get-his-judges-approved.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailybeast%2Farticles+%28The+Daily+Beast+-+Latest+Articles%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher
Perhaps it’s not surprising that a former editor of the Harvard Law Review and former University of Chicago Law School professor is too deferential to the legal establishment. Still, there’s a lesson in all this for future presidents: don’t give a private, unelected organization the power to reject the decisions of our elected officials without at least forcing it to explain itself in the court of public opinion.